The analysis undertaken in this paper explores the significance of a central finding from a recent field study of home care case management practice: a notable feature of case management work is the preparation of an orderly, ordered space where care may be offered. However, out of their encounters with an almost endless variety of situations, out of people's diverse narratives of need, case managers seem able to pick out only limited range of recognized needs to which to respond and (...) demonstrate a series of responses themselves equally limited. Though this observation suggests a kind of efficiency that is currently highly valued within healthcare systems, it also underlines the system's inability to engage difference and variability in a meaningful way. This inability or limitation in effectively engaging difference is conceptualized here as, in some sense, a problem, and the nature of this problem is explored through the rhetorical process of problem setting. The central question becomes how might we develop and deploy an orderly and coherent system of care without essentializing people's experiences, without treating these experiences reductively, without, in a Foucaultian frame of reference, allowing what can be understood as similarity or resemblance among clients and situations to be folded back into sameness? As we encounter complexity, variability and difference in practice, how should we treat it? (shrink)

In this article I argue that Jürgen Habermas’ notion of morality (moral norms) has more in common with Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’ as a ‘ sittlich ’ relation – understood as a socially integrative force – rather than Kant’s supreme principle of personal morality. I show that Habermas and Hegel, each in his own way, make a distinction between morality and ethics. However, I make the case that Habermas’ conception of ‘morality’ incorporates aspects of Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’, (...) while Habermas’ conception of ‘ethical’ – referring to individual and group conceptions of the good life – is a remedy to the shortcomings in Hegel’s overly unified ethical life. I offer an alternative reading of Habermas’ principle of morality, which I suggest should be read as his attempt to provide a binding process to set up the norms that ought to condition a modern political community understood as a civil association. (shrink)

In this paper, we give an account of some of the necessary conditions for an effectively functioning public sphere, and then explore the question of whether these conditions allow for the expression of ideas and values that are fundamentally incompatible with those of liberalism. We argue that speakers who advocate or glorify violence against democratic institutions fall outside the parameters of what constitutes legitimate public debate and may in fact undermine the conditions necessary for the flourishing of free speech and (...) public dialogue more generally. (shrink)

Nobel-price winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen introduced in 2000 the concept of the Anthropocene as the name for the successor geological period to the Holocene. The Holocene started about 12,000 years ago and is characterized by the relatively stable and temperate climatic and environmental conditions that were conducive to the development of human societies. Until recently, human development had relatively little impact on the dynamics of geological time. Although disagreement exists over the exact birth date of the Anthropocene, it is (...) indisputable that the impact of human activity on the geo-climatic environment became more pronounced from the industrial revolution onwards, leading to a situation in which humans are now widely considered to have an eco-geologically critical impact on the earth's bio-physical system. The most obvious example is the accumulation of greenhouse gases like CO2and Methane (CH4) in the atmosphere and the changes this induces in climatic dynamics. Others are the growing homogenization of biodiversity as a result of human-induced species migration, mass extinction and bio-diversity loss, the manufacturing of new (sub-)species through genetic modification, or the geodetic consequences resulting from, for example, large dam construction, mining and changing sea-levels. (shrink)

The Politics of Orientation provides the first substantial exploration of a surprising theoretical kinship and its rich political implications, between Gilles Deleuze's philosophy and the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Through their shared theories of sense, Hannah Richter draws out how the works of Luhmann and Deleuze complement each other in creating worlds where chaos is the norm and order the unlikely and yet remarkably stable exception. From the encounter between Deleuze and Luhmann, Richter develops a novel take on (...) postfoundational ontology where subjects and societies unfold in self-productive relations of sense against a background of complexity. The Politics of Orientation breaks and rebuilds theoretical alliances by reading core concepts and thinkers of Continental Philosophy, from Leibniz to Whitehead and Marx, through this encounter. Most importantly, the book puts Luhmann and Deleuze to work to offer urgently needed insight into the rise of post-truth populism. In our complex democratic societies, Richter argues, orientation against complexity has become the ground of political power, privileging the simplistic narratives of the populist right. (shrink)

Russia’s war against Ukraine has grave consequences in several political categories. These include: a reassessment of the school of ‘political realism’, one of whose proponents claims to have predicted the war. Was the West partly ‘responsible’ for the war? Second, to what extent does the war of aggression, as an undeniable violation of law, damage the status of international law and justice? Third, the war is embedded in political developments that stretch back a century. It is examined in its context (...) within American foreign policy since the Wilsonian peace programme, in relation to the dangerous reluctance of the EU to pursue a decisive geopolitical policy towards Russia, and interpreted in the light of Stalinist echoes within Russian politics. (shrink)

"This book explores the relationship between performance and activism in Chile as a form of political expression and citizen participation during the period 2010-2020. Since the student mobilizations of 2006, the social movements that have taken place in Chile are characterized, in many cases, by the appropriation of public space and the political use of the body. This became particularly evident during the social outbreak of October 2019. The social upheaval was accompanied by a cultural explosion, where the arts in (...) all their dimensions played a crucial role as new strategies of collective action. The research proposes two hypotheses about this cultural revolution. Firstly, that this explosion of artistic activism had been fermenting for at least a decade (2010-2020) within the social movements, using performance and art as expressions of collective action. These artistic drivers, catalysts of this cultural revolution, have been mobilized around three fundamental axes of social demands: human rights, education, and feminism. The second hypothesis is that artistic activism in Chile between 2010-2020 emerged to exercise citizenship and strengthen the diversity of cultural identities. Chilean artistic activism today, unlike other historical moments, is a direct expression of citizen participation. It is no longer just artists who contribute to social and protest movements with their work: now, it is the citizens who use artistic expression as a practice of political participation. From an intersectional and feminist perspective, this book is an invitation to study and reflect on the aesthetic and political dimension of performance and its potential to establish justice and symbolic reparation when the State is absent. Furthermore, it incentivises a conversation about the ritual, pedagogical, and visionary dimension of art and its infinite possibilities of expressive and discursive resources. Performance art reimagines possible futures embodying the political demand, always loaded with memory, reclaiming the public space. Performance as the 'art of action' conquers the realm of non-formal education, permeating public space and shaping a Pedagogy of memory and hope." -/- . (shrink)

We analyse two foundational social problems regarding early childhood education. The first, in the late nineteenth century, is infant mortality, a social problem that constituted the historical legitimation for the first crèches. The second, the prevention of school failure, is very topical today. By analysing these examples in their historicity, taking into account social, political, economical and scientific contexts, it becomes clear that early childhood education can contribute to the individualisation and decontextualisation of social problems. Yet acknowledging this also means (...) opening windows of new opportunities, as far as the construction of social problems remains an open debate in which disagreement rather than consensus is fostered. (shrink)

As a flashpoint for specific instances of conflict, Muslim sartorial practices have at times been seen as being antagonistic to “western” ideas of gender equality, secularity, and communicative practices. In light of this, I seek to highlight the ways in which such moments of antagonism actually might be understood on “cosmopolitical” terms, that is, through a framework informed by a critical and political approach to cosmopolitanism itself. Thus, through an “agonistic cosmopolitics” I here argue for a more robust political understanding (...) of what a cosmopolitan orientation to cultural difference can offer education. The paper moves from a focus on harmony to agonism and from cosmopolitanism to the cosmopolitical, and within each I discuss the questions of democracy and universality, respectively. Drawing on, the work of Chantal Mouffe, Judith Butler and Bonnie Honig, I discuss the basis upon which our agonistic interactions can inform education in promoting better ways of living together. This requires, in my view, nothing less than a clear understanding of the very difficulties of pluralism and a questioning of some of the ways we often reflect on the political dimension of these difficulties. I offer some reflections on what an agonistic cosmopolitics has to offer the debates surrounding the wearing of various forms of Muslim dress in schools in the conclusion. My overall claim is that cosmopolitanism as a set of ideas that seek more peaceful forms of living together on a global scale is in need of a theoretical framework that faces directly the difficulties of living in a dissonant world. (shrink)

The Politics of Military Force uses discourse theory to examine the dynamics of discursive change that made participation in military operations possible against the background of German antimilitarist culture. Once considered a strict taboo, so-called out-of-area operations have now become widely considered by German policymakers to be without alternative. The book argues that an understanding of how certain policies are made possible (in this case, military operations abroad and force transformation), one needs to focus on processes of discursive change that (...) result in different policy options appearing rational, appropriate, feasible, or even self-evident. Drawing on Essex School discourse theory, the book develops a theoretical framework to understand how discursive change works, and elaborates on how discursive change makes once unthinkable policy options not only acceptable but even without alternative. Based on a detailed discourse analysis of more than 25 years of German parliamentary debates, The Politics of Military Force provides an explanation for: (1) the emergence of a new hegemonic discourse in German security policy after the end of the Cold War (discursive change), (2) the rearticulation of German antimilitarism in the process (ideational change/norm erosion) and (3) the resulting making-possible of military operations and force transformation (policy change). In doing so, the book also demonstrates the added value of a poststructuralist approach compared to the naive realism and linear conceptions of norm change so prominent in the study of German foreign policy and International Relations more generally. (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a promising philosophy (...) of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

This volume reflects the development and theoretical foundation of a new paradigm for critical thinking based on inquiry. The field of critical thinking, as manifested in the Informal Logic movement, developed primarily as a response to the inadequacies of formalism to represent actual argumentative practice and to provide useful argumentative skills to students. Because of this, the primary focus of the field has been on informal arguments rather than formal reasoning. Yet the formalist history of the field is still evident (...) in its emphasis, with respect to both theory and pedagogy, on the structure and evaluation of individual, de-contextualized arguments. It is our view that such a view of critical thinking is excessively narrow and limited, failing to provide an understanding of argumentation as largely a matter of comparative evaluation of a variety of contending positions and arguments with the goal of reaching a reasoned judgment on an issue. As a consequence, traditional critical thinking instruction is problematic in failing to provide the reasoning skills that students need in order to accomplish this goal. Instead, the goal of critical thinking instruction has been seen largely as a defensive one: of learning to not fall prey to invalid, inadequate, or fallacious arguments. (shrink)

Christian Kock’s essays show the essential interconnectedness of practical reasoning, rhetoric and deliberative democracy. They constitute a unique contribution to argumentation theory that draws on – and criticizes – the work of philosophers, rhetoricians, political scientists and other argumentation theorists. It puts rhetoric in the service of modern democracies by drawing attention to the obligations of politicians to articulate arguments and objections that citizens can weigh against each other in their deliberations about possible courses of action.

ABSTRACTBased on an overview of the ways in which politics and the political have been thought in critical discourse analysis, the author calls for a focus on the metapolitical dimension of discourse. The author develops his notion of metapolitics on the basis of post-foundational insights into politics, the political and processes of politicization. Metapolitics refers to projects and struggles where conflicting modes and models of politics clash. Metapolitical debates potentially reshape the structure of the public realm as well as the (...) entities, borders and processes that constitute it. The author differentiates his descriptive and analytic use of the term from the way this signifier has been used programmatically by the anti-democratic New Right and its heirs. He demonstrates that metapolitical projects can be democratic as well as anti-democratic. In order to facilitate discourse analyses of metapolitical projects, debates and struggles, the author suggests that the metapolitical dimension of contemporary debates can be explored further by integrating insights from governmentality studies, studies of political rationality and the discourse theoretical logics approach with CDA. Moreover, a further exploration of the linguistic and textual underpinnings of metapolitics constitutes a promising pathway for future investigation. The study of metapolitics should be part and parcel of the transdisciplinary domain of critical discourse studies so that our understanding of the linguistic and non-linguistic features of metapolitical projects can be developed in equal measure at multiple levels of abstraction. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism is commonly understood as a universal norm—moral and political—in the light of enduring differences, and for that reason it has historically embodied a seemingly inevitable dilemma of universality/particularity. Since its inception, cosmopolitan thinkers have struggled with the dilemma and have attempted ways to address the question of difference so that the universal norm and obligation can be justified and defended. One of the most common strategies is to give primacy to universal humanity and override difference; another recent strategy is (...) to give up universalism to take difference seriously and frame difference in agonistic terms. I argue in this article that both strategies are inadequate and unsatisfactory in conceptualising and dealing with difference. Briefly tracing some of the major cosmopolitan approaches, I argue that the conceptualisation of difference and human subjectivity is at the core of the problem as well as the solution. Drawing on Lévinas and his emphasis on the primacy of difference in the constitution of human subjectivity and community, I propose a new understanding of the self and the Other for the success of the cosmopolitan project. (shrink)

The present essay discusses the value of citizenship as shared fate in sites of ethnic conflict and analyzes its implications for citizenship education in light of three issues: first, the requirements of affective relationality in the notion of citizenship-as-shared fate; second, the tensions between the values of human rights and shared fate in sites of ethnic conflict; and third, the ways in which citizenship education might overcome these tensions without falling into the trap of psychologization and instrumentalization, but rather focusing (...) on providing opportunities for social and school practices that manifest shared fate and compassion in critical ways. It is argued that what teachers and schools should try to do is to make practices of shared fate and compassion possible through creating conditions for children and young people to experience what it means to enact such practices in sites of ethnic conflict. It is also suggested that teachers and schools in sites of ethnic conflict cannot produce ‘new’ citizens on the basis of any values, no matter how ‘noble’ these values may be. The most that can be done is to help children and young people to critically reflect upon the conditions under which people in sites of ethnic conflict can act on the basis of shared fate and compassion and provide support so that these possibilities can become realistic. (shrink)

Both environmental social movements and academic thinkers appear to move away from fundamental critique of dominant values in the direction of a more pragmatic approach to environmental politics. This article highlights some of the disadvantages of this development, using environmental concerns to illustrate the broader argument that decent societies aiming for social and environmental justice are best served by the existence of an informed, fundamental type of opposition next to cooperative, loyal modes of dissent. For academics in their inescapable role (...) as fundamental critics, this would imply a relatively distant role as guardians of the critical potential of civil society. (shrink)

Large-scale transnational land acquisition of agricultural land in the global south by rich corporations or countries raises challenging normative questions. In this article, the author critically examines and advocates a human rights approach to these questions. Mutually reinforcing, policies, governance and practice promote equitable and secure land tenure that in turn, strengthens other human rights, such as to employment, livelihood and food. Human rights therefore provide standards for evaluating processes and outcomes of transnational land acquisitions and, thus, for determining whether (...) they are ethically unacceptable land grabs. A variety of recent policy initiatives on the issue have evoked human rights, most centrally through the consultation and negotiation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests concluded in 2012. However, a case of transnational land appropriation illustrates weak host and investor state enforcement of human rights, leaving the parties to in interaction with local groups in charge of protecting human rights. Generally, we have so far seen limited direct application of human rights by states in their governance of transnational land acquisition. Normative responses to transnational land acquisition—codes of conduct, principles of responsible agricultural investment or voluntary guidelines—do not in themselves secure necessary action and change. Applying human rights approaches one must therefore also analyze the material conditions, power relations and political processes that determine whether and how women and men can secure the human rights accountability of the corporations and governments that promote large-scale, transnational land acquisition in the global south. (shrink)

This study investigates the interaction between civil servants and politicians in a planning committee in a Swedish county council. As the committees are venues for preparation of future decision-making, civil servants and others are invited to inform and report to the politicians on different topics. The aim is to explore this local interaction process based on an analysis of requests and responses. It is shown that the communication between civil servants and politicians is pervaded by sociability in the form of (...) conversational routines. The article aims to recognize this sociability as an intrinsic part of knowledge coproduction processes. Civil servants and politicians negotiate different types of professional and common knowledge through routines that dislocate time, responsibility, roles, and protocol order. These lubricants – important but often circumvented in studies of policy-making – are explored as instances of conversational coproduction. (shrink)

We investigate the rural resistance of one of the world’s largest social movements, La Via Campesina, as a powerful enactment of radical democracy in practice. More than this, the paper describes how the movement challenges the framework of radical democracy by pointing towards the ethical importance of recognizing the relationship of human dignity with nature and considering ethico-political values inherent in the peasants’ way of living. Their resistance is a rejection of depoliticizing silencing, and their everyday life is a commitment (...) to a “more than human” radical democracy in its most radical sense, as they are always already “in parliament with land”. We conclude by outlining a perspective which is both more than radical and more democratic, considering those who have not yet been heard but also that which, in the light of radical democracy, has never been counted as part of the political body at all: nature. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of ‘the legitimacy of the people’, that is, what constitutes the legitimate demarcation of the political units within which democracy is practiced? It is commonplace among philosophers to argue that this problem cannot be solved by appeal to democratic procedure because every attempt to do so results in an infinite regress. Based on a social contract theoretical analysis of the problem, this view is rejected. Although contract theorists have ignored the problem of the legitimacy of (...) the people, this article nevertheless argues for one specific, and currently dominant, type of contract view – ‘contractarianism’ – that it contains the conceptual tools to solve it. In a contractarian view, the people are understood as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage and accordingly consist of only those individuals for whom it is mutually beneficial to bind themselves to one another. It is argued that contractarianism offers a procedurally democratic solution to the problem of the legitimacy of the people that does not cause an infinite regress. Furthermore, this article refutes a classic criticism of contractarianism’s account of moral standing. Finally, the article demonstrates contractarianism’s practical implications for one specific articulation of the problem of the legitimacy of the people, namely, immigration. (shrink)

National legal systems undergo profound changes when they are confronted with undemocratic power seizure. The same occurs when they experience a transition (back) to democracy. Thus far, these two types of transition have been studied in relative isolation. Nevertheless, it seems that both undemocratic usurpers and democratizing regimes affect the role of fundamental rule-of-law principles in similar ways. This article compares both types of transition and suggests that pragmatism and national identity are the driving forces behind similar legal mechanisms, affecting (...) legal principles, in those two forms of transition. Drawing on Carl Schmitt's idea of the state of exception and Ruti Teitel's work on transitional justice, this article shows that both kinds of transition share the same fundamental legal structure. (shrink)

The argument claims the vital importance of the idea of the fundamental unity of humankind for any intercultural philosophy, and succinctly traces the trajectory of this idea – and its denials – in the Western and the African traditions of philosophical and empirical research. The conclusion considers the present-day challenges towards this idea’s implementation – timely as it is, yet apparently impotent in the face of mounting global violence.

This article examines how incidents are governed in a Belgian Nuclear Research Center by way of an incident reporting system named Retour d’Experiences. Drawing on a documentary analysis of incident reports, interviews, and focus groups with personnel, it illustrates how REX enacts a safety governmentality centered on identifying incident causes and culprits. As this governmentality mode obscures the epistemic and political character of incidents, it closes down important opportunities for collective learning about safety and safety governance. It is argued that (...) joint reflection about incidents and resistances toward incident reporting serve as fruitful starting points for a more reflexive safety governance that makes explicit how decisions are made in high-risk contexts. Social scientists can enhance governance of this kind by pointing to different perceptions and evaluations of incidents and by insisting that contending interpretations are confronted and accounted for. (shrink)

These days, the radicalization of young people is above all viewed as a security risk. Almost all research into this phenomenon has been carried out from a legal, criminological or socio-psychological perspective with a focus on detecting and containing the risks posed by radicalization. In the light of the political developments since September 11, 2001, this is entirely understandable but perhaps not altogether wise. Research and theory development from a pedagogical perspective can also make a significant contribution towards a better (...) understanding of radicalization processes and possibly offer new points of departure for intervention strategies. On the basis of five typical cases, the authors examine the role of educators, social workers and teachers, and the problems they face when dealing with young people with extreme ideals. This article attempts to provide insight into the pedagogical conditions for the development of extreme ideals and suggests starting points for developing effective countermeasures. (shrink)

Political judgments usually combine a normative principle or intuition with an appreciation of empirical facts regarding the achievability of different options and their potential consequences. The interesting question dividing partisans of political idealism and realism is whether these kinds of considerations should be integrated into the normative principles themselves or considered apart. At first sight, if a theorist is concerned with guiding political judgments, non-ideal or realist theorizing can seem more attractive. In this article, however, I argue that ideal theorizing (...) might be considered valuable even by theorists moved by a pragmatic concern because it is less exposed to conservatism. I nonetheless contend that the aim to guide action in the world as it is should not be abandoned. Therefore, I outline a four-step method for proceeding from abstract moral principles to concrete political judgments and apply it to a test case. (shrink)

In recent years, the United Nations has taken a lead in advocating public-private partnerships (PPPs), and various UN entities actively seek partnerships and alliances with transnational corporations and other companies. Although there has been a rapid growth of PPPs, relatively little is known about their contribution to basic UN goals associated with inclusive, equitable and sustainable development. In response to this situation, there are increasing calls for impact assessments. This article argues that such assessments need to recognize the range of (...) ideational, institutional, economic and political factors and forces underpinning the turn to PPPs, and the very different logics and agendas involved, some of which seem quite contradictory from the perspective of equitable development and democratic governance. The article examines these different forces and logics, focusing on (a) the institutional turn towards "good governance", (b) economic contexts that relate to the very mixed "fortunes" of UN agencies and corporations, (c) structural determinants associated with "corporate globalisation" and (d) political drivers that relate to the struggle for hegemony and legitimisation. The article ends by reflecting critically on the tendency within mainstream development institutions and some strands of academic literature to highlight logics associated with good governance and pragmatism, and to disregard those associated with the strengthening of corporate interests and the neoliberal policy regime. It is argued that knowledge networks associated with the UN need to go beyond "best practice learning" and embrace "critical thinking", which has waned within UN circles since the 1980s. (shrink)

In this article I argue against the view, recently espoused by several authors, that the `incommensurability of values' and `political pespectivism' offer us decisive reasons as to why we should break the link between representation and (the quest for) unity. I hold that it is of paramount importance to retain this essential link. Since Sir Isaiah Berlin has played a major (and in my view unfortunate) role in linking `politics as the quest for unity and the common good' with the (...) `totalitarian temptation', I proceed to show how it is possible to have an understanding of politics as precisely such a quest, but without succumbing to the temptation to totalitarianism that Berlin alerts us to. I then take issue with Chantal Mouffe's view that the tendency to antagonism, rather than the quest for unity and rational consensus, is `the essence of the political'. (shrink)

In this paper I draw some distinctions between the terms “cultural diversity” and “plurality” and argue that a radical conception of plurality is needed in order both to re-imagine the boundaries of democratic education and to address more fully the political aspects of conflict that plurality gives rise to. This paper begins with a brief exploration of the usages of the term diversity in European documents that promote intercultural education as a democratic vehicle for overcoming social conflict between different cultural (...) groups. In contradistinction to these usages, this paper calls for a more robust conception of plurality, one that does not simply denote membership in different cultural groupings but is rooted in the human condition and based on a conception of uniqueness. Following the work of Hannah Arendt and feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero, I explore how the appearance of unique beings in specific contexts can be understood as an eminently political act and I contend that such a view leads to a better educational understanding of conflict and contestation. The paper sketches the contours of democratic plurality along this line of thought and discusses how these new boundaries have implications for education’s relation to democracy. (shrink)

Even though the interrelationship between education and democratic politics is as old as democracy itself, it is seldom explicitly formulated in the literature. Most of the time, the political system is taken as a given, and education conceptualized as an instrument for stability and social integration. Many contemporary discussions about citizenship education and democracy in the Western world mirror this tendency. In the paper, I argue that, in order to conceptualise the socio-political potential of education we need to understand democracy (...) in more political terms. This means that democracy can neither be seen primarily as a mode of associated living, nor a model for handling different life-views. A third alternative is Gert Biesta’s notion of democratic subjectification. Even though Biesta identifies depoliticising trends in citizenship education policies, I argue that his alternative still fails to be a sufficiently political alternative. What is lacking in Biesta is the explicit attention to political causes and the kind of collective activities that define a democracy: the creation of one’s own laws, norms and institutions. This capacity of the collective to question and govern itself is put in relief by Cornelius Castoriadis’s notion of “the project of autonomy”. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against or excluded from (...) Swedish society but also try to shift the understanding of the conditions under which such exclusion is possible in the first place. Being Swedish is that which the immigrant is not. What I argue and give examples of is that the ‘no name’ immigrant becomes a possibility for democracy to happen when he or she claims his or her presence in the demos, in such a way as to make evident a split in the self‐understanding of a purely consensual Swedish democracy. In the article I argue that what is needed in order to go beyond the myth of schooling, is a pedagogy of dissensus contesting the normalizing of an unequal social order by making it contingent. (shrink)

Artikkel käsitleb kriitiliselt üht viimaste kümnendite vastandust poliitilises filosoofias — ‘poliitilise liberalismi’ (Rawls) ja ‘radikaalse demokraatia’ (Laclau ja Mouffe) vahel. Artikkel püüab käivitada potentsiaalset dialoogi nende kahe näiliselt lahkneva lähenemise vahel. Kokkuvõttes näitab artikkel, et vastandus on möödarääkimine vähemalt ühes fundamentaalses mõttes: mõlemad lähenemised jagavad ühiskonnastmõtlemisel sama aluseetost. Artiklis nimetatakse seda ‘sattumuslikkuse eetoseks’ ning väidetakse, et see on kõige fundamentaalsem alusveendumus nii Laclau ja Mouffe’i ‘radikaalse demokraatia’ kui ka Rawlsi ‘õigluse kui ausameelsuse’ idee jaoks. Artikkel osutab ka ühele kesksele kitsaskohale (...) Laclau ja Mouffe’i lähenemises: nende suutmatusele kontseptualiseerida institutsioonilisi korraldusi tulenevalt nende ülemäärasest rõhuasetust demokraatia dekonstruktiivsele potentsiaalile. Selles suhtes osutatakse ka Rawlsi käsitluse ilmselgetele eelistele, kuna see pakub juhiseid organiseerimaks demokraatlikke institutsioone. The paper concentrates on a controversy in recent decades’ political thought between ‘political liberalism’ of Rawls and ‘radical democracy’ (represented in this paper by Laclau and Mouffe). The article tries to initiate a potential dialogue between these seemingly divisive approaches. In conclusion the paper maintains that the whole controversy is misguided in one fundamental respect: both approaches share the same underlying ethos in envisioning society—‘the ethos of contingency’. It is argued that it is the most fundamental tenet informing both Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony with its complementary idea of ‘radical democracy’, and justice as fairness conceived in terms of reciprocity with its accompanying idea of public justification and reflective equilibrium. _e article points to a central impasse in Laclau and Mouffe’s approach: its incapability to conceptualize institutional arrangements due to their overemphasis on the deconstructive potential of democracy. In this respect the obvious merits of Rawls’ conception are highlighted in view of his proposals for organizing democratic institutions. (shrink)

This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.

Foucault’s theory of power and subjectification challenges common concepts of freedom in social philosophy and expands them through the concept of ‘freedom as critique’: Freedom can be defined as the capability to critically reflect upon one’s own subjectification, and the conditions of possibility for this critical capacity lie in political and social institutions. The article develops this concept through a critical discussion of the standard response by Foucault interpreters to the standard objection that Foucault’s thinking obscures freedom. The standard response (...) interprets Foucault’s later works, especially The Subject and Power, as a solution to the problem of freedom. It is mistaken, because it conflates different concepts of freedom that are present in Foucault’s work. By differentiating these concepts, this article proposes a new institutionalist approach to solve the problem of freedom that breaks with the partly anarchist underpinnings of Foucault scholarship: As freedom as critique is not given, but itself a result of subjectification, it entails a demand for ‘modal robustness’ and must therefore be institutionalized. This approach helps to draw out the consequences of Foucault’s thinking on freedom for postfoundationalist democratic theory and the general social-philosophical discussion about freedom. (shrink)

In this article I confront Jürgen Habermas' deliberative model of democracy with Claude Lefort's analysis of democracy as a regime in which the locus of power remains an empty place. This confrontation reveals several structural similarities between the two authors and explains how the proceduralization of popular sovereignty provides a discourse-theoretical interpretation of the empty place of power. At the same time, Lefort's insistence on the open-ended nature of the democratic struggle also points towards an unresolved tension at the core (...) of Habermas' model between the cognitive nature of deliberation on the one hand and the freedom of moral and political agents on the other. A proper solution of this tension requires a full appreciation of the ineliminable gap between actual and ideal deliberation. Because actual deliberation can never result in an ideal consensus, the actual exercise of democratic power should be understood as an unavoidable interruption of deliberation. Key Words: consensus • deliberation • democracy • empty place of power • Jürgen Habermas • Claude Lefort. (shrink)

Many scholars in the area of citizenship education take deliberative approaches to democracy, especially as put forward by John Rawls, as their point of departure. From there, they explore how students’ capacity for political and/or moral reasoning can be fostered. Recent work by political theorist Chantal Mouffe, however, questions some of the central tenets of deliberative conceptions of democracy. In the paper I first explain the central differences between Mouffe’s and Rawls’s conceptions of democracy and politics. To this end I (...) take Eamonn Callan’s Creating Citizens as an example of Rawlsian political education and focus on the role of conflict and disagreement in his account. I then address three areas in which political education would need to change if it were to accept Mouffe’s critiques of deliberative approaches to democracy and her proposal for an agonistic public sphere. The first area is the education of political emotions; the second is fostering an understanding of the difference between the moral and the political; the third is developing an awareness of the historical and contemporary political projects of the “left” and “right.” I propose that a radical democratic citizenship education would be an education of political adversaries. (shrink)

This article addresses two questions: How should a ‘practical political theory’ approach the ideological struggle between advocates of critical social justice and defenders of free speech? And, what does this conflict tell us about the deficits of one particular tradition of practical political theory — namely, agonistic democracy? The paper’s purpose, then, is to illuminate a concrete contemporary phenomenon through the lens of agonistic theory and, conversely, to use this struggle as an impetus to carve out and address weaknesses in (...) the theory of agonism.I defend an ‘agonistic approach’ to the struggle against two alternatives — first, the claim that there is, conceptually, no ‘real’ conflict between social justice and free speech, and second, the strategy to ‘take sides’ in the conflict. By taking seriously the agonistic core idea that struggle and conflict can be valuable and productive expressions of plurality and inclusivity, I argue that this struggle should be approached as an agonistic conflict — as the welcome and important expression of a diversity of views on central social, moral and political questions.I also show, however, how retaining the focus on the real-life struggle between advocates of critical social justice and free-speech sheds light on the inconsistencies of much agonistic thought. In particular, I will criticize those agonists who limit their conception of the ‘agon’ to respectful struggles, and those who see the agon merely as a tool of emancipation for oppressed groups. Against these visions of agonism, I develop an anti-perfectionist, yet radical, account of agonism with the potential to serve as a guide in complex social and political conflicts. (shrink)

This paper provides a critique and re-evaluation of the way that ethics is understood and promoted within mainstream Human Resource Management (HRM) discourse. We argue that the ethics located within this discourse focuses on bolstering the relevance of HRM as a key contributor to organizational strategy, enhancing an organization's sense of moral legitimacy and augmenting organizational control over employee behaviour and subjectivity. We question this discourse in that it subordinates the ethics of the employment relationship to managerial prerogative. In response, (...) we suggest a different model of the relationship between ethics and HRM—one that finds the possibility of ethics in the contestation and destabilization of HRM. Such ethics arises through resistance to moral normalization and the constraint of freedom and difference. The contribution of our paper is in theorising the possibilities of a relationship between ethics and HRM that does not place HRM at its centre, as chief intermediary of the ethics of the employment relationship, but rather sees HRM as being a powerful player in a set of what Mouffe calls 'agonistic' socio-ethical relations. (shrink)

There are two dominant schools of thought addressing problems of cosmopolitanism and conflict: democratic national sovereigntism, inspired by Hegel, and global constitutionalism, inspired by Kant and reformulated by Habermas. This paper develops a third position by reading Adorno's critique of both theoretical traditions. Rather than compromising between these camps, Adorno triangulates between them. Critically illuminating their respective deficiencies in view of the changing conditions of a globalized modern world has critical implications for cosmopolitics. Although largely negative, Adorno's critique provides an (...) important framework for a contestatory reformulation of cosmopolitanism, one that is better equipped to confront societal and political global conflicts insufficiently reflected in sovereigntist and global constitutionalist models. (shrink)

In this theoretical and explorative essay, two issues are discussed, which are based on personal experiences of teaching ethics. The first is what educational purpose does it serve to challenge students as ethical subjects while teaching a class? This issue is mainly discussed through an analysis of Gert Biesta’s works. He argues that an essential purpose for teachers is to enable students to appear as subjects. For this to happen, the teacher must “interrupt” the students by presenting that which challenges (...) his or her basic ethical preconceptions, which in turn forces the student to choose as a subject. However, if the teacher gives priority to such interruptions, s/he risks a conflict with his or her students. That gives rise to the second issue raised in the essay, whether the teacher should express his or her ethical perspectives while teaching ethics. The issue is discussed by analyzing Bruno Latour’s political philosophy. He argues that conflict is an essential feature in any democratic society where everyone’s concerns are presented. For that reason, he argues for the need of public “diplomats,” whose function is to enable an endeavor for peace. As diplomats, both their ethical agency and ability to judge what is worth highlighting is recognized. Thus, the essay concludes that a diplomatic teacher is someone who has the judgement to decide whether his or her ethical perspectives should be highlighted while teaching a class, or if it would disrupt an endeavor for peace. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe specific aim of this study is to investigate how a group of migrant rights activists in Sweden are positioned in news discourse. The more general aim of this study is to understand the conditions under which activists participate within news discourse. Through a critical discourse analytical framework, with specific focus on the use of epistemic and dynamic modalities in the presentation of activists’ statements, the analysis shows what kinds of knowledge claims can be constructed and from what discursive position. (...) Furthermore, the analysis shows what kind of political claims the activists can make. The activists are positioned as ‘dreamers’ in relation to political possibilities and as ‘experiencing individuals’ in relation to knowledge claims. The main conclusion of the article is that journalistic discourse has inherent ideological resources to include activist voices: at the same time, it is able to exclude the political relevance of activism. (shrink)

Two features characterize new and emerging technosciences. The first one is the production of peculiar ontologies. The human agent is confronted with a biophysical world the contingent, indeterminate character of which does not hamper but expands the scope of purposeful action. Uncertainty is increasingly regarded as a resource for an expanding will rather than a drawback for a disoriented agent. The second feature is that ethics is increasingly considered as the core regulatory means of this messy, ever-changing world. The ambivalences (...) of the ethical government of contingent assemblages are discussed by focusing on the governmentality perspective. The latter helps to make sense of the regulatory alliance between ethics and technoscience. A reflection on Foucault’s account of ethics shows that the emancipatory role of the latter is today hampered by its embroilment with the instrumental reason it aims to govern, nor can older models of ethical commitment find any straightforward application. Mapping the issue in terms of mutual constitution of power, potentiality and possibility gives salience to a particular question: what we are able not to do. (shrink)

Rise of populist politics in the 21s century calls scholars and politicians alike to reflect upon the question of how politics and democracy have been understood. Drawing on the theory of hegemony, this article establishes a distinction between democracy and ‘demography’ as a key line of conceptualization in politics. It highlights a central misunderstanding at the core of the demonization of populism: For radical democratic theory, ‘the people’ is not a demographic, socio-economic, or historically sedimented category tied to some characteristics, (...) but a performative process of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ ‘the people’ as a self-consciously enacted polity. This statement challenges the taken-for-granted status of subjectivities of political struggle and links this approach to other contemporary discussions of politics, democracy, and populism. After discussing how anti, neo and post-foundational theoretical accounts on populism reveal a dimension of politics and representation, this article emphasizes action and performativity over static categories and models characteristic of political realism and political system approaches. (shrink)

The article defends the importance of metaphysical inquiry in feminist philosophy and interrogates possible directions for such a project. A key aim is questioning the possibility of revisionary metaphysics as well as emphasising the consequences of the linguistic turn for any such project. I argue that before we can embark on any metaphysical inquiry – feminist or otherwise – we are doomed to repeating Immanuel Kant's monumental question of how is metaphysics possible? I then ask how metaphysics is understood in (...) feminist discussions and focus on one contemporary effort to create feminist metaphysics, namely Christine Battersby's The Phenomenal Woman: Feminist Metaphysics and the Patterns of Identity (1998). Through a critical analysis of her position I tease out the problems, paradoxes and obstacles that the project of feminist metaphysics faces. Finally, I explicate the politicised conception of reality that I find in Michel Foucault's thought and conclude by considering its consequences for our understanding of feminist metaphysics and politics. (shrink)

The paper explicates a politicized conception of reality with the help of Michel Foucault’s critical project. I contend that Foucault’s genealogies of power problematize the relationship between ontology and politics. His idea of productive power incorporates a radical, ontological claim about the nature of reality: Reality as we know it is the result of social practices and struggles over truth and objectivity. Rather than translating the true ontology into the right politics, he reverses the argument. The radicality of his method (...) lies in showing how the ontological order of things is in itself the outcome of a political struggle: Ontology is politics that has forgotten itself. I argue that Foucault’s thought accomplishes the politicization of ontology with two key theoretical moves. The first is the contestation and provocation of all given and necessary ontological foundations. He affirms the ontological view that there is a discontinuity between reality and all ontological schemas that order it, and a subsequent indeterminacy of reason in establishing ultimate truths or foundations. After this initial step whereby ontology is denaturalized—made arbitrary or at least historically contingent—the way is open for explanations that treat the alternative and competing ontological frameworks as resulting from historical, linguistic and social practices of power. The second key move is thus the exposure of power relations and their constitutive role in our conception of reality. I conclude by considering the implications of Foucault’s politicization of ontology for our understanding of politics. (shrink)

So-called 'realists' have argued that political philosophers should engage with real politics, but that mainstream 'non-realist' political philosophers fail to do so. Perhaps surprisingly, many of the discussions between realists and their critics have not drawn much on debates in metaethics. In this paper, I argue that this is an oversight. There are important connections between the realism/non-realism debate and certain controversies in metaethics. Both realism and non-realism come with metaethical baggage. By considering several arguments that could be made for (...) and against both positions, each of which rests on contested views about the metaphysics and epistemology of value, I outline exactly which metaethical claims realists and nonrealists must defend in order to make their position tenable. (shrink)

Since at least the 1980s, the role of adversariality in argumentation has been extensively discussed within different domains. Prima facie, there seem to be two extreme positions on this issue: argumentation should never be adversarial, as we should always aim for cooperative argumentative engagement; argumentation should be and in fact is always adversarial, given that adversariality is an intrinsic property of argumentation. I here defend the view that specific instances of argumentation are adversarial or cooperative to different degrees. What determines (...) whether an argumentative situation should be primarily adversarial or primarily cooperative are contextual features and background conditions external to the argumentative situation itself, in particular the extent to which the parties involved have prior conflicting or else convergent interests. To further develop this claim, I consider three teloi that are frequently associated with argumentation: the epistemic telos, the consensus-building telos, and the conflict management telos. I start with a brief discussion of the concepts of adversariality, cooperation, and conflict in general. I then sketch the main lines of the debates in the recent literature on adversariality in argumentation. Next, I discuss the three teloi of argumentation listed above in turn, emphasizing the roles of adversariality and cooperation for each of them. (shrink)