This article puts into perspective the practice of financial regulation in contemporary financial markets, while a new normative order has emerged. This order, heralded by algorithmic technologies, changes the conditions for the exercise of regulation: to date, it has not yet been fully acknowledged nor understood by regulatory bodies. Computer code, replacing speech and writing, induces a changeover from one normative order to another in contemporary markets: the norm, previously explicated with recourse to interpretation, is now replaced by an order (...) characterized by calculation. Such paradigm change is identified based on a discussion of works by Gilles Deleuze. In so doing, it contributes to the developing research programme in the cultures of high-frequency trading (Lange et al. 2016) and also points at broader issues for conceptualising financial regulation. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the relation between problems and the formation and development of concepts in Bergson’s work, as well as in Bachelard, Canguilhem and Deleuze. Building on work by Elie During, I argue that it is not only Bergson but also Deleuze who shares with the French epistemological tradition an “anti-positivist” conception of concept formation, founded upon the posing and solving of novel problems as opposed to the acquisition and verification of empirical facts. Contrary to During, however, I argue (...) that it is not Bergson but Deleuze who furnishes us with an “anti-positivist” conception of problems that is adequate to this anti-positivist conception of concept formation. Deleuze’s anti-positivist view of problems holds, firstly, that genuine problems require the creation of novel terms in which to state and solve them. He shares this view with Bergson, Bachelard and Canguilhem. Secondly, however, Deleuze holds that a problem’s “truth” is not to be evaluated with reference to its eventual solutions, nor with reference to some privileged and contentful experience of reality, but is rather a matter of its purely intrinsic productivity. (shrink)

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate algorithmic governmentality – as proposed by Antoinette Rouvroy – specifically in relation to law. It seeks to show how algorithmic profiling can be particularly attractive for those in legal practice, given restraints on time and resources. It deviates from Rouvroy in two ways. First, it argues that algorithmic governmentality does not contrast with neoliberal modes of government in that it allows indirect rule through economic calculations. Second, it argues that critique of such systems is possible, (...) especially if the creative nature of law can be harnessed effectively.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper, with a theory-based approach, that is intended to explore relevant issues related to algorithmic governmentality as a basis for future empirical research. It builds on governmentality and socio-legal studies, as well as research on algorithmic practices and some documentary analysis of reports and public-facing marketing of relevant technologies.FindingsThis paper provides insights on how algorithmic knowledge is collected, constructed and applied in different situations. It provides examples of how algorithms are currently used and how trends are developing. It demonstrates how such uses can be informed by socio-political and economic rationalities.Research limitations/implicationsFurther empirical research is required to test the theoretical findings.Originality/valueThis paper takes up Rouvroy’s question of whether we are at the end of critique and seeks to identify where such critique can be made possible. It also highlights the importance of acknowledging the role of political rationalities in informing the activity of algorithmic assemblages. (shrink)

Past and future coalesce in discussions of LGBTI rights, often embedded in narratives of progress, civilisation, colonisation and emancipation. An understanding of these dynamics can help to illuminate the complex power relations that currently striate international LGBTI rights discourses. This paper analyses how temporality operates in the context of international LGBTI rights through an examination of the World Bank’s withdrawal of a $90 million loan to Uganda after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014. To do this, the paper juxtaposes (...) postcolonial critiques of the ongoing international legal reproduction of the colonial encounter, with a Deleuzian conception of law’s ‘virtual memory’. These two theoretical lenses are used to show how attempts to advance LGBTI rights can reproduce problematic civilisational binaries, through which the Global North seeks to manage the unruly or ‘uncivilized’ Global South. These civilisational and spatial dichotomies are often obscured by un-interrogated ‘grand narratives’ of progress and by the codification of specific, narrow forms of rights protections. As such, the paper argues that in order to better advance current and future frameworks for sexual orientation and gender identity justice, we must undertake a more attentive encounter with the past. (shrink)