The Ontopolitical Difference of the Supplement
摘要
In the second part of the book, I turn my attention to the international. In this chapter, opening this second part, I propose rethinking the ontopolitical difference of the international. Adopting a deconstructionist style, I offer a supplementary thinking of the politics of international law, overturning and displacing critical attention toward the supplement. My aim in this chapter is to begin questioning (about), reimagining, and rethinking both law and politics, and the politics of international law more broadly, but doing so while reconsidering the ontopolitical difference of the—international—supplement. For this purpose, I suggest returning to the work of Christian Reus-Smit (1999, 2004a, 2004b, 2004c, 2004d), most specially to his interstitial conception of the politics of international law and holistic understanding of the constitutional structure of international society. In so doing, however, I adopt a deconstructionist, post-foundational political position inspired by the work of Oliver Marchart (2007). Thus, I propose a supplementary thinking of the politics of international law that not only privileges the supplement, but also problematizes and reimagines the international in relation to both the ontic-ontological and the politics-political differences. In displacing attention toward its ontopolitical difference, I reposition this work before hauntological traces of the international.