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rule of law and Foucault  

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If the rule of law is meant to protect us against arbitrary power - i.e. the rule of law and not certain individuals or groups - then what becomes the rule of law if one understands power in Foucauldian terms? Foucault suggests the existing legal system that purports uphold the rule of law while at the same time acting as a mechanism for state control over that individual.1 In light of this, it can be proposed that Foucault's view of the legal system is a negative one as a negative utopia. After all Foucault sees the legal system as a way of legitimating state control over its citizens or as Litowitz terms it "a form of domination and a smoke screen for non juridical modes of domination."2 The arbitrary power comes from the sovereign government where disciplinary power arises to control the state. Foucault believes that the juridical notion of commanding...

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