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Theory of Encryption of Power (also referred to as the encryption of power or decryption of power) is a critical legal and decolonial philosophical framework originating in Latin American political thought. The theory was first proposed in 2013 by legal theorist Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo and political scientist Gabriel Méndez-Hincapié in the article "The Encrypted Constitution: A New Paradigm of Oppression," published in Critical Legal Thinking.[1][2]
It forms the conceptual basis for the Bloomsbury Academic book series Decrypting Power and Coloniality: Philosophical Perspectives from and through the Global South.[3]
Origins and Development
[edit]The theory of encryption of power emerged from debates in Latin American critical legal theory in the early 2010s. Its first formulation appeared in "The Encrypted Constitution: A New Paradigm of Oppression" (2013), co-authored by Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo and Gabriel Méndez-Hincapié in Critical Legal Thinking.[1] The article argued that modern constitutions do not simply limit power but encode it—establishing a public legal language while withholding the capacity to author meaning within it.
Sanín-Restrepo developed the framework across a trilogy of monographs. Decolonizing Democracy: Power in a Solid State (2016) introduced the historical proof: the "fraudulent fusion" of people and sovereignty in modern constitutionalism, and the production of "the hidden people" as the structural exception that sustains the fiction of popular sovereignty.[4] Being and Contingency: Decrypting Heidegger's Terminology (2020) developed the ontological proof: a re-reading of Aristotle's distinction between energeia and entelecheia, arguing that Western metaphysics has privileged the latter and thereby encrypted the contingency of being.[5] Decrypting Time: Grounding Democracy in Becomingness (2027) completed the trilogy by grounding radical democracy in the structure of time itself, engaging with Quentin Meillassoux's concept of Hyper-Chaos to argue that contingency, when actualized as irreversible time, prohibits entelecheia as an ontological condition.[6]
The theory was further developed in the edited volume Decrypting Power (2018), which gathered contributions applying the framework to law, ideology, and political theory,[7] and in the article "The Theory of Encryption of Power: Itinerary of an Idea" (2020), co-authored with Marinella Machado-Araujo, which traced the concept's development and clarified its central categories.[2]
Since 2020, the framework has expanded into a broader research program through the Bloomsbury Academic series Decrypting Power and Coloniality: Philosophical Perspectives from and through the Global South, edited by Sanín-Restrepo, Marinella Machado-Araujo, Angus MacDonald, and James R. Martel.[3] The series has applied the theory across domains including sovereignty, political theology, secularism, asylum law, and epistemology.
Conceptual Framework
[edit]The Theory of Encryption of Power examines how legal, political, and institutional systems encode authority to constrain popular agency while maintaining the formal structures of liberal democracy.[8] Central to the theory is the distinction between potestas (centralized, institutional domination) and potentia (immanent, constituent power), drawing on Spinoza and classical political theory.[4] The theory posits that modern constitutionalism acts as an encryption mechanism that conditions human existence (beingness) to conform to pre-established, transcendent identity models.[2]
In relation to continental political theory, the framework extends Michel Foucault's concept of biopolitics by arguing that the encryption of legal beingness precedes biopolitical regulation.[2] It also critiques Giorgio Agamben's concept of "inoperosity" (deactivation as resistance), arguing instead for the active exercise of immanent power (energeia) over passive potentiality.[9]
In the context of Latin American legal history, the framework analyzes post-independence constitutional developments following emancipation from Spain. It argues that liberal constitutional adoption, alongside paradigms like the Monroe Doctrine, transitioned regional governance from overt territorial colonialism to encrypted legal structures.[2] Under these constitutional models, universal declarations of sovereignty coexisted with structural exclusions of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and peasant populations, creating a constituency the theory terms "the hidden people."[1][4]
Ontologically, the theory contrasts two Aristotelian modalities of power: entelecheia (stratified, endpoint-driven actuality) and energeia (unconditioned, dynamic becoming).[5] Sanín-Restrepo contends that genuine democracy requires the absence of pre-qualifications for political communication, positioning democracy as an ontological condition of becoming.[8][6]
Scholarly Applications
[edit]The framework has been applied across several academic disciplines within critical theory and political philosophy.[3] Political theorist James R. Martel utilized the theory in Decrypting Sovereignty as Archism (2026) to analyze sovereign legal illusions and constituent power.[10] Decolonial scholar Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni incorporated the concept into studies on epistemic hierarchies and internationalism in Decoloniality in Southern Africa (2020) and Beyond the Coloniality of Internationalism (2024).[11][12]
Legal philosopher Andityas Matos applied the framework to state liturgies and exception in Decrypting Political Theology (2025).[13] Critical legal scholar Oscar Guardiola-Rivera engaged the model to analyze state secrecy and financial regulation in A Hopeful Political Imagination: Courage and Fantastic Critique in the Age of Meltdown (2025),[14] while Nicolás Panotto applied it to secular political institutions in Latin America in Decrypting Secular Power: Theological and Colonial Codes in Latin American Politics (2026).[15]
Reception
[edit]Works associated with the theory have received commentary in critical journals and academic reviews. Drucilla Cornell endorsed the edited volume Decrypting Power for its analysis of leftist political theory.[7] Reviews of Decolonizing Democracy appeared in Constellations and Law, Culture & Humanities, examining its critique of state capitalism and legal ontology.[16][17] Philosophers Alain Brossat, Antonio de Cabo de la Vega, and Carlo Galli have also published commentary on individual volumes within the book series.[4][13][6]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo; Méndez-Hincapié, Gabriel (August 8, 2013). "The Encrypted Constitution: A New Paradigm of Oppression". Critical Legal Thinking. Retrieved October 2, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo; Machado-Araujo, Marinella (2020). "The Theory of Encryption of Power: Itinerary of an Idea". Revista da Faculdade Mineira de Direito. 23 (45). Belo Horizonte, Brazil: 222–245. ISSN 1808-9429.
- 1 2 3 "Decrypting Power and Coloniality: Philosophical Perspectives from and through the Global South". Bloomsbury Academic. Retrieved October 2, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo (2016). Decolonizing Democracy: Power in a Solid State. London: Rowman & Littlefield / Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-78348-705-9.
- 1 2 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo (2020). Being and Contingency: Decrypting Heidegger's Terminology. London: Rowman & Littlefield / Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-5381-4767-2.
- 1 2 3 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo (2027). Decrypting Time: Grounding Democracy in Becomingness. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 979-8-21648-571-1.
- 1 2 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo, ed. (2018). Decrypting Power. London: Rowman & Littlefield / Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-78660-927-4.
- 1 2 Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo (March 17, 2025). "Ontology and Politics of Liberation: Two Paths to Decrypt Power". Critical Legal Thinking. Retrieved October 2, 2026.
- ↑ Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo (September 30, 2019). "The Case Against Agamben's Impotence". Critical Legal Thinking. Retrieved October 2, 2026.
- ↑ Martel, James R.; Sanín-Restrepo, Ricardo, eds. (2026). Decrypting Sovereignty as Archism. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-66697-871-1.
- ↑ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. (2020). Decoloniality in Southern Africa: History, Epistemology, and Politics. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-43890-6.
- ↑ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. (2024). Beyond the Coloniality of Internationalism: Reworlding the World from the Global South. Dakar: CODESRIA. ISBN 978-2-86978-983-8.
- 1 2 Matos, Andityas (2025). Decrypting Political Theology: Genealogy, Tendencies, Antagonisms. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 979-8-21619-927-4.
- ↑ Guardiola-Rivera, Oscar (2025). A Hopeful Political Imagination: Courage and Fantastic Critique in the Age of Meltdown. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-978760-28-8.
- ↑ Panotto, Nicolás (2026). Decrypting Secular Power: Theological and Colonial Codes in Latin American Politics. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-35032-411-4.
- ↑ "Review of Decolonizing Democracy: Power in a Solid State". Constellations: An International Journal of Democratic and Critical Theory. 25 (3). Wiley-Blackwell: 512–515. 2018. doi:10.1111/1467-8675.12350.
- ↑ Al Aslam (2017). "Book Review: Decolonizing Democracy: Power in a Solid State". Law, Culture and the Humanities. 13 (2). SAGE Publications: 580–584. doi:10.1177/1743872117693344b.