International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2020 | Page 112

Introduction
Underestimating the Political Dimension in Urban and Geopolitical Violence
In this paper, the political dimension will be first and foremost defined in its
general morphological sense, as a system for organizing human life in society,
beyond the historically situated social and cultural forms that determine its
current state. 2 It will also be understood in its narrow (or specific) morphological
sense as derived from the Greek (politeia) and European (conjuratio) meanings, 3
while being characterized by a permanent polemos for a “just division” 4 that concerns
“the greatest number.” 5
This would certainly appear to be the form in which it is universalized today
under the banner of good governance; which does not mean that this universalization
occurs automatically, or even that it is desired (making it possible to go
beyond the tensions raised by the work of Fukuyama and Huntington).
We thus observe that its constitution (or nature), in the sense of what it cannot
not be—its quiddity 6 —has a dynamic element that is continuing to integrate
the differences produced by history through trial and error. For example, the other
(person or structure) is not only an other but also my other, as we have known
since Hegel. 7 The issues that arise when classifying and delineating human moti-
2 This article sits within the gnoseological framework defined by Jean Baechler (1985, 14 and 98) in
his study of the concepts of morphology and in particular régime [“system”] along similar lines to
those set out by Claude Lefort (1986, 8–9): “The research generated by the difference in forms of society,
in the categories that make it possible to give them a reason and establish political judgment
( ... ), [prohibit] politics from being designated a specific sector of social life; instead, [this research]
implies the concept of a generating principle or set of generating principles for the relations that
men maintain between themselves and with the world. The most eloquent account of this design is
perhaps the most ancient. Plato (or Socrates) was perhaps the first to shape what I have just called
a form of society into an idea, with his examination of the politeia. We are accustomed to translating
the word into French as régime [“system or government”]. It is currently trapped in a restrictive
meaning that risks leading us astray. As Léo Strauss has rightly observed, the word is only worth
holding onto if we retain the full resonance it gains when used in the expression Ancien Régime.
This combines the idea of a type of constitution with that of a style of existence or lifestyle.”
3 Weber 1927, 319–20: “The occidental city arose through the establishment of a fraternity, the
πολιτεία in antiquity, the coniuratio in the middle ages ( ... ), the brotherhood in arms for mutual
aid and protection, involving the usurpation of political power. ( ... ) The polis is always the product
of such a confraternity or synoecism, not always an actual settlement in proximity but a definite
oath of brotherhood which signified that a common ritualistic meal is established and a ritualistic
union formed and that only those had a part in this ritualistic group who buried their dead on the
acropolis and had their dwellings in the city.”
4 Delsol 2007, 3.
5 Bentham 1843, p. 142.
6 “The quiddity of a thing,” as Ravaisson (2008, 512) beautifully puts it, “is not all it is, but merely all it
cannot not be; it is the set of all the permanent and unalterable, primitive and underived elements,
that persist through accidental modifications.” See also note 3 by Jean Tricot in his French translation
of the Metaphysics (Aristotle 1981, Vol. 1, 23, A, 3, paragraph 25).
7 1979, 357: La théorie de l’être, (NP, 112-113), § 92, (106) : « ( ... ) C’est pourquoi l’être-autre n’est pas
de l’indifférent extérieur à lui, mais son propre moment. ( ... ) ». Voir également §45, pp.207-208.
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