Legal hyper-invasiveness and anti-legal practices in contemporary Italy

The paper contains an illustration of legal hyper-invasiveness in Italy over the course of the last decades, with particular emphasis on multiplication of laws and law-producing institutions: neoliberal governmentality is not characterised by a retreat of the state, rather it extends its reach and force. The success of legal imposition has always been partial; in the last years however anti-legal constituent praxis are becoming more evident both in public demonstrations and in everyday practices. Street mobilizations are increasingly fed by disillusion for institutional politics, pursuing explicit anti-legal aims and marked by an autonomy from political parties and trade unions. Daily avoidance of institutional control is examined ethnographically revealing a growing and spreading sense of intolerance for several regulations promoted by the institutional powers. Finally, contemporary forms of repression of these constituent energies are examined and the belief that an increase in legality will benefit citizens is questioned.