Pleasure of Punishment

Magnus Hörnqvist is Professor of Criminology at Stockholm University. In a series of research projects, he has investigated the productivity power in state-organised arenas and shown how normality and inequality are being created through interventions directed toward challenges of a conceived order. Publications in English include Risk, Power and the State (Routledge 2010) and articles in journals such as Regulation & Governance, Philosophy & Social Criticism and Punishment & Society. Publications in Swedish include a monograph on the Foucauldian analysis of power (Carlsson 2012) and an introductory book on social class (Liber 2016). It is essential reading for those engaged with penology, criminological and social theory and the sociology of punishment.

"Does punishment produce pleasure? Through historical, philosophical, and cultural analyses, this book brilliantly explains why societies seem to desire punishment. By taking us to the root of this desire, Hörnqvist vividly explores how punishment fulfils moral aspirations for social esteem. This extraordinary book pushes our understanding of punishment far beyond crime and law, and into the social study of morality, inequality, and everyday politics."Ron Levi, Distinguished Professor of Global Justice, University of Toronto

• Introduction: Articulating the problematic of desire 1. The disappearance of pleasure? 2. The impossible flight from passion 3. The ambiguous desire for recognition 4. The paradox of tragic pleasure 5. Two paradigms of enjoyment 6. Ressentiment: moral elevation through punishment 7.Obscene enjoyment: between power and prohibition