Empire Read Online Free PDF

accorded to it. This preconstituted movement defines
    the reality ofthe process ofthe imperial constitutionalization of
    world order—the new paradigm.
    This imperial paradigm is qualitatively different from the vari-
    ous attempts in the period oftransition to define a project of
    international order.22 Whereas the previous, transitional perspectives
    focused attention on the legitimating dynamics that would lead
    toward the new order, in the new paradigm it is as ifthe new order
    were already constituted. The conceptual inseparability ofthe title
    and exercise of power is affirmed from the outset, as the effective
    a priori ofthe system. The imperfect coincidence, or better the
    ever-present temporal and spatial disjunctions between the new
    central power and the field ofapplication ofits regulation, do not
    lead to crises or paralysis but merely force the system to minimize
    and overcome them. In short, the paradigm shift is defined, at
    least initially, by the recognition that only an established power,
    W O R L D O R D E R
    15
    overdetermined with respect to and relatively autonomous from
    the sovereign nation-states, is capable offunctioning as the center
    of the new world order, exercising over it an effective regulation
    and, when necessary, coercion.
    It follows that, as Kelsen wanted, but only as a paradoxical
    effect of his utopia, a sort of juridical positivism also dominates the
    formation of a new juridical ordering.23 The capacity to form a
    system is, in effect, presupposed by the real process of its formation.
    Moreover, the process offormation, and the subjects that act in it,
    are attracted in advance toward the positively defined vortex ofthe
    center, and this attraction becomes irresistible, not only in the name
    ofthe capacity ofthe center to exercise force, but also in the name
    of the formal power, which resides in the center, to frame and
    systematize the totality. Once again we find a hybrid ofLuhmann
    and Rawls, but even before them we have Kelsen, that utopian
    and thus involuntary and contradictory discoverer ofthe soul of
    imperial right!
    Once again, the ancient notions ofEmpire help us articulate
    better the nature ofthis world order in formation. As Thucydides,
    Livy, and Tacitus all teach us (along with Machiavelli commenting
    on their work), Empire is formed not on the basis of force itself
    but on the basis ofthe capacity to present force as being in the
    service ofright and peace. All interventions ofthe imperial armies
    are solicited by one or more ofthe parties involved in an already
    existing conflict. Empire is not born ofits own will but rather it
    is called into being and constituted on the basis ofits capacity to resolve conflicts. Empire is formed and its intervention becomes
    juridically legitimate only when it is already inserted into the chain
    ofinternational consensuses aimed at resolving existing conflicts.
    To return to Machiavelli, the expansion ofEmpire is rooted in the
    internal trajectory ofthe conflicts it is meant to resolve.24 The first
    task ofEmpire, then, is to enlarge the realm ofthe consensuses that
    support its own power.
    The ancient model gives us a first approximation, but we need
    to go well beyond it to articulate the terms ofthe global model of
    16
    T H E P O L I T I C A L C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E P R E S E N T
    authority operating today. Juridical positivism and natural right
    theories, contractualism and institutional realism, formalism and
    systematism can each describe some aspect ofit. Juridical positivism
    can emphasize the necessity for a strong power to exist at the center
    ofthe normative process; natural right theories can highlight the
    values of peace and equilibrium that the imperial process offers;
    contractualism can foreground the formation of consensus; realism
    can bring to light the formative processes of the institutions adequate
    to the new dimensions ofconsensus and authority; and formalism
    can give logical support to what