The objective of this article is to see whether desire for recognition might contain an emancipatory aspect. Could this desire be a political ally? The argumentative strategy is to fully acknowledge the oppressive mechanisms at work before trying to find a way to other outcomes, including emancipation, with which desire for recognition has been associated in the tradition from Hegel. Through a re-interpretation of the master-and-slave dialectic, supplemented by sociological research on status expectations, I suggest a way out of the vicious circle, where desire produced by power finds satisfaction through a preexisting other, resulting in an endless dynamic of compulsive conformity and regressive assertion of status. The hold of this dynamic must not be underestimated, yet, as I argue, both desire and what satisfies desire are liable to change, through struggle. The transformation of the generalized other, which provides recognition, is seen to be a crucial feature of all collective struggle. The very source of recognition is transformed, behind the backs of the actors, in turn affecting their desire. This can but must not lead to the emancipatory outcomes which are traditionally tied to recognition in the Hegelian tradition.

In response to an impasse, articulated in the late 1980s, the cognitive capacities of ordinary people assumed central place in contemporary critical social theory. The participants' perspective gained precedence over scientific standards branded as external. The notion of cognition, however, went unchallenged. This article continues the move away from external standards, and discusses two models of critique, which differ based on their underlying notions of cognition. The representational model builds on cognitive content, misrecognition and normativity; three features which are illustrated with positions adopted by prominent exponents of critical social theory. An alternative understanding relies on action-oriented disclosure and the participants' basic familiarity with the social world. On this reading, what clashes with unequal structures is skilful coping, rather than representations and normative standards. The action-oriented approach may overcome the dilemma of understanding both the impact and the possible transcendence of unequal structures, although it cannot ultimately replace representational critique.

I den här texten diskuterar jag tesen om den förtryckande begärsdynamiken. Tesen knyter an till den långa traditionen av kritisk värdering av erkännandet och finns i två olika versioner. En första version formulerades av Judith Butler i The Psychic Life of Power (1997) genom att väva samman Hegels begrepp om erkännande med Foucaults maktanalys. I den versionen innebar erkännande tvångsmässig tillfredsställelse av ett perfekt socialiserat begär. I en annan version, formulerad av Peter Sloterdijk i Zorn und Zeit (2006) i ett försök att sammanföra Nietzsches analys av viljan med Hegels kamp om erkännande, innebar erkännande ohämmat hävdande av existerande statusordningar. Båda versionerna undergräver själva tanken att begäret skulle kunna vara en allierad i strävan efter frigörelse. Frågan blir då om det trots allt går att hitta en utväg ur den förtryckande begärsdynamiken till några av de andra utfall (kollektiv frigörelse, personlig autonomi, mer tolerans) som erkännandet också förknippats med i traditionen från Hegel. Begäret som potentiell politisk allierad är det som står på spel.  Ambitionen är att visa att tesen om den förtryckande begärsdynamiken inte utesluter utan snarare anger villkoren för ett erkännande som är frigörande. Genom en omtolkning av Hegels herre-slavdialektik, stödd av samhällsvetenskaplig forskning om social status, argumenterar jag för att det finns en tredje väg till erkännande, bortom konformitetens tvångsmässiga erkännande och bortom defensivt hävdande av status: det erkännandet som själva kampen erbjuder. Argumentet presenteras i tre steg, där varje steg svarar mot en väg till erkännande: tvingande konformitet, självhävdelse och omskapande av den generaliserade andre. Det första avsnittet redogör för maktens djupgående inverkan och erkännandets undflyende och tvångsmässiga natur (Version 1); det andra avsnittet skildrar begärets grundläggande ambivalens och erkännande som ensidigt hävdande av status (Version 2). I det tredje avsnittet diskuteras hur erkännandets källa – den generaliserade andre – omskapas genom kollektiv kamp, och öppnar en väg ut ur den förtryckande begärsdynamikens dilemma.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes how, in different settings and ways, Nordic criminal justice systems were folded into a global world and how this embeddedness was related to stakeholders developing and using positive normative valuations of these systems. It sets the scene for the edited volume by analyzing an important site of scholarly and practical debate on Nordic criminal justice. The book documents the twists and turns of the historical evolution of the Ringe prison project, which came to include self-catering, prison officers without professional training, mixed sexes on prison wings and other practices considered radical at the time. It provides an analysis of Nordic legal practices in relation to the globalization of international crime control. The book deals with the official Swedish stance on drugs in international context.

Det här kapitlet handlar om kriminalpolitik som arena för antikapitalistiska ambitioner, för genuspolitik och antirasism i en tid då många andra arenor tycktes blockerade. Istället för att kräva en jämlik fördelning av samhällets resurser och likvärdiga möjligheter för alla vände man sig till rättsväsendets arkaiska iscensättande av rättvisa. Kravet att straffa hårdare formulerades även från vänster, och rymde ett begär efter social rättvisa som gick utöver begäret efter hämnd på konkreta oförrätter. Att se dagens kriminalpolitik som enbart framgångsrik hantering av kapitalistiska kriser och andra former av maktstabilisering räcker inte. Men vi börjar där, i de reaktionära politiska kalkylernas rike, för det är mot den bakgrunden, utifrån en upplevd otrygghet och bristande erkännande inom breda befolkningslager som kanaliserades mot brott, som de emancipatoriska ansatserna kan framträda.

This book critically investigates Nordic criminal justice as a global role model.

Not taking this role for granted, the chapters of the book analyze how Nordic approaches to criminal justice were folded into global contexts, and how patterns of promotion were built around perceptions that these approaches also had a particular value for other criminal justice systems. Specific actors, both internal and external to the region itself, have branded Nordic criminal justice as a form of ‘penal exceptionalism’ associated with human rights, universalistic welfare, and social cohesion. The book shows how building and using the brand of Nordic criminal justice allowed stakeholders to champion specific forms of crime control across a variety of criminal justice areas in both domestic and international settings.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of criminal justice, international law and justice, Nordic and Scandinavian studies, and more widely to the social sciences and humanities.

Based on a reading of contemporary philosophical arguments, this book accounts for how punishment has provided audiences with pleasure in different historical contexts. Watching tragedies, contemplating hell, attending executions, or imagining prisons have generated pleasure, according to contemporary observers, in ancient Greece, in medieval Catholic Europe, in the early-modern absolutist states, and in the post-1968 Western world.

The pleasure was often judged morally problematic, and raised questions about which desires were satisfied, and what the enjoyment was like. This book offers a research synthesis that ties together existing work on the pleasure of punishment. It considers how the shared joys of punishment gradually disappeared from the public view at a precise historic conjuncture, and explores whether arguments about the carnivalesque character of cruelty can provide support for the continued existence of penal pleasure. Towards the end of this book, the reader will discover, if willing to go along and follow desire to places which are full of pain and suffering, that deeply entwined with the desire for punishment, there is also the desire for social justice.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, philosophy and all those interested in the pleasures of punishment.

The article develops a new understanding of neoliberal security provision on the basis of available accounts of three different “states”; the penal state, the regulatory state, and the activating welfare state. I argue that these forms of state intervention provide individuals with security in the sense that anxiety is temporarily alleviated, while stabilizing the conflictual dynamic of global power structures. Marketization and organizational control account for the specifically neoliberal character. Such an understanding matters because it directs attention to the dynamic between state practices and individual experience, and the multitude of mechanisms, which not only promise but also provide security, however temporary and partial.