Destituent Potentiality and the Critique of Realization

Abstract

Before we can think what a destituent power might be, we must first dispense with a concept that has surreptitiously dominated Western thought and politics, namely, that of realization. By realization, we understand the idea that political action consists in realizing in practice a doctrine, a philosophy, an ideal, a project, or whatever else you want to call this kind of obscure presupposition of every political practice.