Work

Constituent Power, Constituent Rights: Thinking Rights with Spinoza and Negri

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: While the concept of constituent power is central to democratic and radical political theory, its correlate— constituent rights —remains largely unexamined. This paper proposes a systematic theorization of constituent rights by revisiting Antonio Negri’s concept of constituent power through the lens of Baruch Spinoza’s principle of ius sive potentia (right or power). Although Negri draws extensively on Spinoza to conceptualize constituent power as an immanent and productive force, he leaves underdeveloped the parallel notion of rights as equally constituent. I argue that if power is irreducible and inalienable in Spinoza’s metaphysics, so too are rights. The concept of constituent rights, then, resists the foreclosure and enclosure imposed by juridico-political orders, and thereby also points us toward the existence of rights in immanent practices, regardless of their legal recognition or institutionalization.

Source: Philosophy & Social Criticism

DOI: 10.1177/01914537261416865

Author: Morgan Björö

Institution: Lund University

Language: English

Topic: Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

Subfield: Philosophy

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650