TY - JOUR

T1 - State Nobility in the Field of International Criminal Justice

T2 - Divergent Elites and the Contest to Control Power over Capital

AU - Christensen, Mikkel Jarle

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Criminal law was long considered as the sovereign domain of the state. However, after the endof the Cold War, states created new international criminal courts. These courts are part of awider field of international criminal justice in which different elites work to develop, support,and critique legal ideas and practices that either complement or challenge the state. Inspiredby Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and based on a multiple correspondence analysis with sixty-fourmodalities, this article contributes a critical analysis of 365 elite agents active in this field. Theanalysis shows how different types and volumes of capital structure relations between theseelites as well as between the field of international criminal justice and the state. Because theserelations can turn state nobility against its national origins, international criminal justice poses apotential challenge to the state’s social fabric which goes beyond legal and political controversies:International criminal justice is emblematic of a competition over the value of and control overcapital which plays out at the borders between the national and the international. This contestunderlines that the state does necessarily control power over state capital and that, when itselites no longer reproduce its meta-capital, the state loses the semblance of being a unified actoron the world stage. Whereas the intensity of this contest over capital might be particular to thefield of international criminal justice, similar battles of control are likely to affect the relationsbetween the state and other globalized fields of law, justice, and politics.

AB - Criminal law was long considered as the sovereign domain of the state. However, after the endof the Cold War, states created new international criminal courts. These courts are part of awider field of international criminal justice in which different elites work to develop, support,and critique legal ideas and practices that either complement or challenge the state. Inspiredby Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and based on a multiple correspondence analysis with sixty-fourmodalities, this article contributes a critical analysis of 365 elite agents active in this field. Theanalysis shows how different types and volumes of capital structure relations between theseelites as well as between the field of international criminal justice and the state. Because theserelations can turn state nobility against its national origins, international criminal justice poses apotential challenge to the state’s social fabric which goes beyond legal and political controversies:International criminal justice is emblematic of a competition over the value of and control overcapital which plays out at the borders between the national and the international. This contestunderlines that the state does necessarily control power over state capital and that, when itselites no longer reproduce its meta-capital, the state loses the semblance of being a unified actoron the world stage. Whereas the intensity of this contest over capital might be particular to thefield of international criminal justice, similar battles of control are likely to affect the relationsbetween the state and other globalized fields of law, justice, and politics.

U2 - 10.1093/sf/soad037

DO - 10.1093/sf/soad037

M3 - Journal article

VL - 102

SP - 753

EP - 770

JO - Social Forces

JF - Social Forces

SN - 0037-7732

IS - 2

ER -