Roundtable: “The Regime is Held Together Only by Police”: Liberal Democracy, Late Fascism, & Police Power

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Sessions

Abstract/Description

This roundtable session consists of a series of interdisciplinary reflections that consider the role of police within the current conjuncture of capitalist crisis – the “crisis of democracy” as it develops under what Albert Toscano has called “late fascism.” The critical reflections in this roundtable work together in arguing that the current crisis reveals once again the absolute importance of a radical, abolitionist critique of police power: there can be no authoritarian situation without the ordinary emergency powers of the police to legally harass, interrogate, abduct, capture, cage, deport, and even kill those marked a “threat” to civilization itself. The organizing prompt of the roundtable, then, is the graffiti tagged on a wall in France during the “yellow vests” uprisings: The Regime is Held Together Only by Police. This claim, we think, needs to be taken seriously.

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chair

• Tyler Wall, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Discussants

• Emma Russell, La Trobe University

• Bill McClanahan, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

• Travis Linnemann, Kansas State University

• Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land, University of Winnipeg

• Tyler Wall, University of Tennessee, Knoxville