The body as the frontier of politics

In many election campaigns over the past few years, the central issues have not only been economic or geopolitical but have directly involved citizens’ bodies. Why is this happening?
I have always been struck by the fact that, during debates between candidates for the American presidency, topics fundamentally tied to the body have emerged strongly. Take abortion, for example: a matter that directly concerns a woman’s right to self-determination over her own body. In the United States, this issue has held an absolutely central place in political debate — long before the Trump era, but explosively so during his presidency — demonstrating that some civil rights are never fully secured once and for all. They can be challenged, scaled back, or erased. And always, at the core, there is the body that politics would like to remove but is forced to reckon with.

Does politics tend to remove it?
Yes, it tends to ignore it, to consider it a non-political matter. Yet the body, in its materiality, keeps coming back. It is there that the great fractures of our society manifest: inequalities, freedoms, and denied rights. Take the issue of end-of-life and euthanasia: in Italy, it remains on the margins of the debate, yet it stirs public opinion, concerns families, and involves the suffering of thousands of people. The body in its final moments—consuming itself, declining, fading away—comes knocking again at the doors of institutions. It challenges the political agenda and will continue to do so in the future.

You have written and said several times that all rights have their foundation in the body. What does this mean?
It means that it is from the protection of the body’s primary dignity — life, safety, physical integrity — that subsequent rights can arise: civil, political, social, and economic. Everything is based on that fragile and tangible matter that is the human body, which demands protection, recognition, affirmation, and respect. Without this physical, concrete foundation, rights become an abstraction. And democracy risks remaining a mere formality, devoid of substance.

Another area where the body comes into play in a striking way is in state abuses, a topic you have tirelessly addressed for decades.
Yes. Political doctrines speak of the “bodies of the State,” referring to its apparatus and institutions. And it’s not just a metaphor. I think of Menenius Agrippa’s fable, which we all remember from school: Roman society is compared to a human body, where each part has a function and contributes to the harmony of the whole. But what happens when that body—the State—instead of protecting, exercises violence on the citizen’s body?

What happens is that the very foundational pact of the State breaks down.
Exactly. The modern State is based on the promise — and it’s important to remember: a promise, not a guarantee — to protect the safety of its citizens. But too often this promise is betrayed precisely by its repressive apparatuses, by its so-called “bodies.” Armed bodies, trained bodies, hierarchical bodies. In cases of violence by law enforcement, it becomes clear how fragile that promise is. And how the pursuit of truth is hindered by another kind of “esprit de corps”: that internal solidarity which, when it degenerates, turns into a code of silence.

Is this internal culture what makes it so difficult to obtain justice?
Yes, because these bodies rely on an extremely strong internal bond, a camaraderie culture that guarantees unity and mutual protection — to the point of covering up, denying, and obstructing fact-finding. And so the citizen’s body becomes a battleground. And once again, it is there — in that vulnerable flesh — that the fundamental question is played out: whether the State truly serves life or serves control over it.