Modelling Institutions, Instituting Models: The Juridification of Politics and the Performative Power of Naming

Starting from Deleuze’s claim that institutions perform a social activity of creating and imposing models of conduct, the chapter analyses the various ways in which this modelling activity has been conceptualized in political theory. It identifies three main paradigms of the performativity of institutions available in the literature: the sovereign, the subversive, and properly instituting performativity. The chapter argues that the latter, wherein models are construed as previsions of the world, enables a better understanding of the current juridification of politics.