The weight and form of "the political". Problems and perspectives in the renaissance of the political economy of punishment.

• In Event: Is there a future for the political economy of punishment? Theoretical balance and perspectives

Abstract

Over more than a decade the exploration of the link between “political economy” and “punishment” has experienced a sort of renaissance within the field of the sociology of penality. One of the fundamental challenges that these recent theoretical productions (among others, Melossi; De Giorgi; Cavadino and Dignan and Lacey) have faced differently is to overcome certain forms of determinism, which were observed in works of the "political economy of punishment" of the 1970s and 1980s. One of the paths to do this has been to emphasize the role of "the political" in the construction of the connection between economy and penalty. This has resulted in different ways of defining "the political" and considering its strength. This paper aims to delimit and evaluate both the forms and weight of "the political" in these perspectives, emphasizing the contradictions between different authors. From there, it pretends to argue in favor of a way of thinking "the political" that recognizes the possibility of going beyond the metaphor of “filter” or “mediation”, that emphasizes the dimension of the struggle and that is capable of questioning the idea of the "economy", to use the expression of EP Thompson (1978), as a "first order, isolated activity".

Author

• Máximo Sozzo, Universidad Nacional del Litorel, Argentina