1st Edition

The Juridification of Democracy How Politics Travels from the Streets to the Courts, and Back Again

By Natascia Tosel Copyright 2026
196 Pages
by Routledge

196 Pages
by Routledge

This book examines what it identifies as an increasing juridification of politics. This term refers to the use of law by both state and non-state social actors to advance their political demands and strategies. Juridification is often portrayed as a depoliticising, even democratising, process; it is frequently attributed to the logics of neoliberal governance. In this view, a small number of... Read more

Introduction: Is Law Killing Politics?

Chapter 1: Juridification as Neoliberal Depoliticisation: A Genealogy

Chapter 2: Breaking the Model: Otto Kirchheimer on the Juridification(s) of Liberal Democracy

Chapter 3: Is the Judiciary the New Sovereign Power? Juridification versus Juristocracy

Chapter 4: How Are the Values of Democracy Defined? The Case of Vulnerability in the ECtHR Jurisprudence

Chapter 5: Juridification From Below: How Citizens Make Politics with Rights

Chapter 6: The Performativity of Juridification. Minoritarian, Anti-Majoritarian, or Democratic Politics?

Conclusion. Juridification and Democracy in Dark Times

Biography

Natascia Tosel is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Political Studies, University of Verona, and an assistant researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies (CIEG), University of Lisbon. She holds a PhD in philosophy from a joint doctoral programme between the University of Padua and Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis. She has been a research fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin. Her research lies at the intersection of political and legal philosophy and feminist theory.