This article explores how and why contemporary nationalist ‘defence leagues’ in Australia and the UK invoke fantasies of law. I argue these fantasies articulate with Carl Schmitt’s theory of ‘nomos’, which holds that law functions as a spatial order of reason that both produces and is produced by land qua the territory of the nation. To elucidate the ideological function of law for defence leagues, I outline a theory of law as it relates to (political) subjectivity. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Agamben and Brown, I demonstrate how subjects form and are formed by historically contingent relationships to law in the contemporary neo-liberal moment. Turning to Lacan, I show how nationalistic invocations of law provide nationalists with a fantasy that the nation’s law represents them and holds them together (as the nation itself). Similarly, I argue that nationalists imagine that the other has their own law as well, which not only corresponds to the other, but functions as a legible index of the other’s otherness—a metonym for the threatening uncertainty and radical difference that the other represents. Drawing on Lacan’s concept of the big Other, I ultimately argue that nationalists aggressively (re)assert law not only to defend the nation, but to ensure their own symbolic and ontological security therein.

中文翻译：

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包容和排斥法则：诺莫斯、民族主义和他者

本文探讨了澳大利亚和英国的当代民族主义“国防联盟”如何以及为何援引法律幻想。我认为这些幻想与卡尔施密特的“诺莫斯”理论相吻合，该理论认为法律作为理性的空间秩序发挥作用，它既生产国家领土，又被国家领土生产。为了阐明法律对国防联盟的意识形态功能，我概述了一种与（政治）主体性相关的法律理论。借鉴福柯、阿甘本和布朗的作品，我展示了在当代新自由主义时代，主体如何通过与法律的历史偶然关系形成和形成。转向拉康，我展示了民族主义对法律的援引如何为民族主义者提供一种幻想，即国家的法律代表他们并将他们团结在一起（作为国家本身）。相似地，我认为民族主义者认为对方也有自己的法律，它不仅与对方相对应，而且作为对方的他者的清晰索引——他者所代表的威胁性不确定性和根本差异的转喻。借鉴拉康的大他者概念，我最终认为民族主义者积极（重新）主张法律不仅是为了保卫国家，而且是为了确保他们自己在其中的象征和本体论安全。