Constitutional Exposure - Pablo Ghetti

CONSTITUTIONAL EXPOSURE identifies and then builds on the principal postulation in Jacques Derrida’s discourse on ‘democracy to come.’ First, Pablo Ghetti argues that Derrida’s key postulation in democracy to come lies in what is termed ‘constitutional exposure,’ i.e. exposure of the ‘constitutional’ experience of law (constitution–ruin, visibility–invisibility, friendship–enmity, universality–singularity). Second, he intensifies Derrida’s discourse by further addressing both law and the ‘to come.’

There are two obstacles to Derrida’s constitutional exposure: his understanding of juridical law [droit] and the ‘to come’ as opposed to justice and sovereignty, respectively. As in democracy per se, what is needed of law and ‘to come’ is to insist upon ‘their’ exposure. Democracy ‘to come’ is a postulation that still has a ‘to come’ ultimately towards an overexposure as a radical democratic postulation with and beyond Derrida. Such a beyond is thought from within Derrida’s work and his sources, but also through critical legal thought, radical democratic theory, post-Marxism, and the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy. Working towards a more equal and fuller enjoyment of democracy and the exposed constitution of law, this book crafts various strategies and develops a language through which constitutional settings can be further studied and critiqued, and through which their democratic core can be defended and enhanced.