ABSTRACT
Having drawn the attention of the reader to the problems involved and the precautions that are necessary in any project linking Lacanian theory and the political (problems that stem both from the difficulties entailed in all attempts at bringing together psychoanalysis and the political and from the particular status of Lacanian theory), but also having sketched some of the gains anticipated from such an enterprise—and after the brief summary of contents and Lacan’s biography with which my introduction came to a conclusion—it is now time to start our exploration of Lacanian theory and its relevance for socio-political analysis, especially for a theory of the political. Our starting point, to which this first chapter is devoted, is the Lacanian conception of the subject. A subject that by being essentially split and alienated becomes the locus of an impossible identity, the place where a whole politics of identification takes place. It is this subject which is generally considered as Lacan’s major contribution to contemporary theory and political analysis.
