Chapter 1: Subjective Figures of the Crisis ... - Negri in English

embedded in the constitutional structures, pose an unavoidable
obstacle to any opening to the self-management of the common
These questions and these doubts about the possibility of
democratic reform, we find, undermine some of the central
positions of the traditional Left, whose most progressive
elements remain tied to the defense and reform of the republican
constitutions. We thus want, in light of the current crisis, to
sketch some aspects of the contemporary' constitutional
predicament, which we will approach, following convention, by
considering in turn the three primary' branches of government.
The powers of the executive have expanded considerably in
the last decades. The executive bureaucracy has developed
structures that effectively double and rival the other two
branches. In the United States, for example, decisions of legal
experts of the executive branch tend to take precedence over
those of the judiciary'; the executive's Office of Legal Counsel
rivals the importance of the attorney general's office; and the
president's economic experts predominate over legislative
powers. Similarly in Europe, for some time now, governments
have hollowed out parliamentary' powers through legislation by
decree; interior ministers and police are increasingly free from
parliamentary' controls; and war powers and the management of
the military' have been shifted from the legislative to the
executive branch.
Why, then, given this disproportion of executive power with
respect to the other branches, has not Barack Obama (to take an
example, but one could name many others) been more
successful completing his reform agenda Obama did not put an
end to the exceptional powers that George W. Bush's
administration wielded. Why, then, w T as he not able to use them
effectively To w T hat extent w T as Obama himself prisoner of those
executive structures Obama, of course, is no revolutionary', but
he did come to office with the intention of effecting some
modest, but significant, reforms. The same dilemma can be seen
in terms of the Left in Europe. For an example of a major social
reform conducted by the Left, one w T ould have to go back to the
first two years of the Mitterrand government in France.
The legislative branch, w T hich in many respects should be
the source of reform, has been progressively emptied of its