Subjectivation and Cohesion: Towards the Reconstruction of a Materialist Theory of Law

On the basis of a reconstruction of legal theory in the tradition of Marx-a current that has been more or less silenced since the end of the 1970s-Subjectivation and Cohesion develops a critical counter-pole to the theories of law that predominate in social theory today.To this end, the works of Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Evgeny Pashukanis, Oskar Negt, Isaac D. Balbus, the so-called 'State-derivation School', Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Michel Foucault are first analysed for their strengths and weaknesses, and then combined to form something new and much needed: a materialist legal theory that is fit for the present and which avoids the shortcomings of existing theories - above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law.