Lacan, Deleuze and World Politics by Andreja Zevnik

Description

Lacan, Deleuze and World Politics: Rethinking the Ontology of the Political Subject ✍🏼 Andreja Zevnik 📖 Long Summary (in one paragraph): Lacan, Deleuze and World Politics by Andreja Zevnik explores how the philosophies of Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze can radically reframe our understanding of political subjectivity and global politics. Zevnik argues that traditional political theory often relies on fixed notions of identity, sovereignty, and subject formation, but Lacan's psychoanalysis and Deleuze's philosophy of difference offer more fluid and dynamic ways to think about how political subjects come into being. The book challenges conventional state-centric and rational-actor models by emphasizing unconscious desires, fantasies, and affective forces that shape political identities and actions. Drawing on Lacan's concepts of the Real, the symbolic order, and subjectivity, along with Deleuze’s notions of becoming, assemblage, and deterritorialization, Zevnik presents a new ontology where the political subject is fragmented, shifting, and shaped by both symbolic structures and affective intensities. Through this theoretical lens, the book rethinks key issues in world politics, such as resistance, sovereignty, and emancipation, proposing that true political transformation requires acknowledging the unconscious and the non-rational dimensions of political life. Zevnik's work is a significant contribution to critical International Relations theory, psychoanalytic political theory, and Deleuzian philosophy, pushing for a more nuanced understanding of how subjects engage with power and politics in a globalized world.