This article uses the current ‘refugees/migrants crisis’ and Brexit as illustrative of the numerous challenges the European Union faces today when it comes to its identity and the construction of a ‘European citizenship’. By discussing the proliferation of borders on the European continent and by analysing the sociological significance of such proliferation, the article argues that Europe is experiencing an ontological and epistemological rather than an existential crisis that relates to its incapacity to acknowledge, and critically engage with, its fundamental (...) neo-colonial and neo-liberal matrix. The article argues that the stalemate experienced by the European Union with respect to its regional and global relevance can only be overcome by bringing to the surface buried or disqualified knowledges about ‘who counts as European’ beyond whiteness. (shrink)

This article examines how new types of performance appraisal reconfigure everyday personal relationships at work. These systems deploy smartphone technologies to be used continuously by individuals to rate each other. Our aim is to show, in concrete terms, how these practices claim to configure a democratic space where individuals are liberated to express their views about each other’s work. On the contrary, we argue that by being placed in continuous confrontation with each other’s ratings, the genuine space for democratic contestation, (...) for the establishment of a genuine community, as well as for critique and dissent is—paradoxically—narrowed down. The first section of this article explores the context in which managerialism has become consolidated at the centre of neo-liberal politics in a dialogue with some of Mouffe’s and Rancière’s arguments. We use Rancière’s concept of “policing” to understand how managerial techniques subvert genuine democratic spaces, modes of participation and expression. Using performance appraisal systems as an example, the second part of the article provides a critical investigation which shows how managerialism intervenes at the very roots of possible democratic engagement and undermines dissent in subtle ways. (shrink)

Here is a sketch of a genealogy of political theory for the last century. This is a genealogy in Nietzsche’s sense: therefore, neither unhistorical taxonomy, nor a history of political theory as it is written by historians, but a typology in time. Four types of modern political theory are distinguished. These are called, with some justification, positive, normative, third way and sceptical political theory. Seen from the vantage of the twenty-first century, they form an instructive sequence, emerging as a series (...) of reactions to the canonical political theory that was established in the universities in the late nineteenth century. None of the four should be excluded from our conception of what political theory has been, though most of them, when seen genealogically, reveal their defects more clearly than they do when treated purely theoretically. Since this is a sceptical finding, the genealogy is a polemic against the first three types of modern political theory in favour of the last. (shrink)

Despite being a seemingly straightforward moral concept (that all humans have certain rights by virtue of their humanity), human rights is a contested concept in theory and practice. Theorists debate (among other things) the meaning of “rights,” the priority of rights, whether collective rights are universal, the foundations of rights, and whether there are universal human rights at all. These debates are of relatively greater interest to theorists; however, a given meaning of “human rights” implies a corresponding theory of change (...) and through that can be an important guide to the practice of human rights activists and their funders. In practice, any organization can describe their work as “rights based.” This article clarifies the practices of human rights activists and their funders that are consistent with a theory of human rights as (1) universal, (2) interdependent across groups and categories of people, (3) indivisible across issue areas and claims, and (4) measured by the enjoyment of rights. (shrink)

: Theoretically, feminists ought to be the best deliberative democrats. However, political commitments (which this author shares) to inclusiveness on issues of reproductive health and gay and lesbian rights, for example, create a boundary within feminism between those committed to the "feminist consensus" on these issues and women activists who share some feminist commitments, but not all. This article offers theoretically and empirically informed suggestions for how feminists can foster inclusive deliberation within feminist spaces.

Theoretically, feminists ought to be the best deliberative democrats. However, political commitments to inclusiveness on issues of reproductive health and gay and lesbian rights, for example, create a boundary within feminism between those committed to the “feminist consensus” on these issues and women activists who share some feminist commitments, but not all. This article offers theoretically and empirically informed suggestions for how feminists can foster inclusive deliberation within feminist spaces.

Theoretically, feminists ought to be the best deliberative democrats. However, political commitments to inclusiveness on issues of reproductive health and gay and lesbian rights, for example, create a boundary within feminism between those committed to the “feminist consensus” on these issues and women activists who share some feminist commitments, but not all. This article offers theoretically and empirically informed suggestions for how feminists can foster inclusive deliberation within feminist spaces.

Christopher Meckstroth’s book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central problem of democratic theory: what he calls the ‘paradox of authorization’, whereby the very activity of spelling out the political content of democracy is said to potentially contradict its object, since the democratic theorist may end up substituting himself or herself for ‘the people’ in deciding what this form government amounts to in practice. In order to avoid this problem, Meckstroth suggests that the political content of (...) democracy ought to be extrapolated out of concrete political struggles, by submitting competing claims to represent the people’s will to a rational scrutiny that tests them for internal coherence. While pointing out the intrinsic interest and originality of this approach, the review also advances some reservations concerning the posited criterion’s capacity to perform all the work Meckstroth assigns it. In the end, the proposed solution to the ‘paradox of authorization’ may fall prey to... (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)

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)

Philosophy strives to give us a firmer hold on our concepts. But what about their hold on us? Why place ourselves under the sway of a concept and grant it the authority to shape our thought and conduct? Another conceptualization would carry different implications. What makes one way of thinking better than another? This book develops a framework for concept appraisal. Its guiding idea is that to question the authority of concepts is to ask for reasons of a special kind: (...) reasons for concept use, which tell us which concepts to adopt, adhere to, or abandon, thereby shoring up—or undercutting—the reasons for action and belief that guide our deliberations. Traditionally, reasons for concept use have been sought either in timeless rational foundations or in concepts’ inherent virtues, such as precision and consistency. Against this, the book advances two main claims: that we find reasons for concept use in the conceptual needs we discover when we critically distance ourselves from a concept by viewing it from the autoethnographic stance; and that sometimes, concepts that conflict, or exhibit other vices such as vagueness or superficiality, are just what we need. By considering not what concepts are absolutely best, but what concepts we now need, we can reconcile ourselves to the contingency of our concepts, determine the proper place of efforts to tidy up thought, and adjudicate between competing conceptions of things,—even things as contested as liberty or free will. A needs-based approach separates helpful clarification from hobbling tidy-mindedness, and authoritative definition from conceptual gerrymandering. (shrink)

When we participate in political debate or protests, we are judged by how we look, which clothes we wear, by our skin colour, gender and body language. This results in exclusions and limits our freedom of expression. The Politics of Becoming explores radical democratic acts of disidentification to counter this problem. Anonymity in masked protest, graffiti, and online de-bate interrupts our everyday identities. This allows us to live our multiple selves. In the digital age, anonymity becomes an inherent part of (...) everyday communication. Through our smart devices we express our selves differently. As cyborgs, our identities are disrupted and reassembled. We curate self-representations on social media, create avatars, share selfies and choose the skin colour of our emojis. The Politics of Becoming encourages us to engage in a revolution of the self. Democratic pluralism is not only a matter of institutional design but also about how we express our identities. Inner revolutions change our personal realities and plant a seed for democratic futures. (shrink)

Both modernist and post-modern social criticism of power presuppose that agents frequently consent to power relations, which a political theorist may wish to critique. This raises the question: from what normative position can one critique power which is, as a sociological fact, legitimate in the eyes of those who reproduce it? This paper argues that "symbolic violence" is a useful metaphor for providing such a normative grounding. In order to provide an epistemological basis of critique, it is further argued that (...) social actors have multiple interpretative horizons available to them as part of their everyday social practices. Thus, they are not caught in a preconstituted web of meaning from which there is no escape, as is sometimes implicit in the over-socialized perceptions of agency associated with post-modernism. (shrink)

Through a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's rule-following discussions, this article defends a negotiating model of normativity according to which normative authority is always subject to contestation. To refute both individualism and collectivism, I supplement Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument with a Social Language Argument, showing that normativity cannot be monopolized either individually or socially (i.e. it cannot be privatized or collectivized). The negotiating view of normativity here developed lays the foundations of a politics of radical contestation which converges with Chantal Mouffe's (...) framework of 'radical democracy', while departing from her agonism in preserving the structuring and constraining role that tacit agreement in action plays in rule-following practices. My account of the 'burdens of eccentricity' elucidates how the normative force of dissidence can be properly recognized and used effectively for social transformations. I argue that there is a 'presumption of normalcy' in favour of the established consensus of action, but that this presumption is defeasible: in normative disagreements, a violation of expected normalcy shifts the burden onto the shoulders of rebellious agents who must show that their dissenting behaviour can be a legitimate extension, revision, or transformation of the practice in question. (shrink)

Cheng Hao was a Confucian thinker during the Song dynasty. He strove to restore and reconstruct classical Confucianism. Although his theses were inherited from the Confucian classic, including the Anatects, Mencius, the Classic of Changes, and the Doctrine of the Mean, his interpretations offer learners new insight and perspective in understanding Confucianism. He and his younger brother, Cheng Yi, are commonly referred to as the “Two Chengs” for their parallel efforts in laying the groundwork of Neo-Confucianism.

_Examines the implications of Aristotle’s political thought for contemporary political theory._.

In this article I analyze Rawls' and Habermas' accounts of the role of religion in political deliberations in the public sphere. After pointing at some difficulties involved in the unequal distribution of deliberative rights and duties among religious and secular citizens that follow from their proposals, I argue for a way to structure political deliberation in the public sphere that imposes the same deliberative obligations on all democratic citizens, whether religious or secular. These obligations derive from the ideal of mutual (...) accountability that is supposed to guide political deliberation in a deliberative democracy. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply. (shrink)

This is the Introduction to a collected volume.

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.

La tesis central de este trabajo es que la tradicional tensión entre substancia y procedimiento socava las estabilidad de la justificación de la concepción liberal más extendida de la legitimidad (la Democracia Deliberativa). Dicha concepciones enfrentan problemas serios a la hora de articular de manera consistente dos dimensiones que parecen ir naturalmente asociadas a la idea de legitimidad: la dimensión procedimental, vinculada a la equidad del procedimiento, y la dimensión epistémica, asociada a la corrección de los resultados. En este trabajo (...) sostengo que a) esa tensión surge de la adopción de una concepción epistemológica social de tipo "veritativo-consecuencialista; b) es posible manejar dicha tensión mediante el remplazo de la epistemología subyacente por una concepción epistemológica social de tipo procedimentalista de orientación pragmatista y c) dicha operación orienta el diseño institucional en una dirección experimentalista. (shrink)

Science and technology studies analyses of emerging forms of treatment often result in the detailed display of complexities and at times lead to explicit critiques of particular healthcare practices. Simultaneously, there seems to be an increasing interest in exploring more experimental engagements by STS researchers in the proactive construction of such practices. In this article, I explore the relevance of experimental interventions in health care practices for both these care practices and for issues of the normativity of STS research. By (...) analyzing my involvement in changes in the practice of hemophilia home treatment, I indicate how this care practice was reconfigured, partly by drawing on STS insights on the issue of compliance. I also claim that experimenting with forms of ‘‘artful contamination’’ allow STS researchers to do normativity in the practices they engage with. Such practices of interventionist STS research may be of value for refiguring debates in which constructivism has been accused of being normatively deficient. This may make interventionist STS research a fruitfully risky business. (shrink)

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop...

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the latter conforms to (...) particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people. (shrink)

Agonistic democrats have enriched debates on the political challenge of pluralism by raising awareness for the depth of disagreements and the political potentials of conflict. However, they have so far failed to explore the shape of institutional settings that are conducive to agonism and show how the agonistic stance may, in a very practical sense, strengthen democracies’ capacity to deal with pluralism and conflict. This article argues that this ‘institutional deficit’ of agonistic democracy can be overcome. It develops an approach (...) that reads theories of agonistic democracy as accounts of conflict regulation and uses principles of agonistic politics as measures for a critical assessment of institutional design. A discussion of a test case that is prominent in the recent literature on democratic innovations for pluralist societies—mini-publics—demonstrates that the principles of agonistic conflict regulation as developed by Mouffe, Connolly and Tully provide the basis for both a critique of certain institutions and a development of alternative designs. (shrink)

The majority of those who comment upon the theories of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe - both supporters and critics - treat the work of the two authors as a coherent unity. I see acute differences that demarcate the ideas of Laclau and Mouffe: differences that impede any straightforward delimitation of the authorial identity `Laclau and Mouffe'. The purpose of this paper is to bring to the fore the incommensurate political differences that separate the work of the two authors, and (...) to establish the superiority of Mouffe's position. At its most basic both authors view politics as described in their co-authored Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: i.e. `as a practice of creation, reproduction and transformation of social relations' (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 153). This agreement, however, conceals the fact that the authors describe the political articulation of social relations in distinct ways, and that those descriptions are implicated in, and reinforce, contrasting ethico-political commitments and prescriptions. These differences reflect the differences between the politics of the Marxist tradition retained by Laclau - albeit understood as a negative apparition of its former (ultimately) fully positive self - and Mouffe's radical democratic pluralism. This latter perspective - in its more recent formulations - represents a political compound of civic-republicanism with a defense of liberalism; this is a political imaginary that retains little if anything from the Marxist tradition. (shrink)

In this paper, I delineate one tradition of contemporary political thought that has emerged within the more general climate of difference and diversity. This is ‘agonistic pluralism’. The paper evaluates the recent work of three authors, who exemplify this strand of political thinking; William Connolly, Chantal Mouffe, and James Tully. Over the past decade, each of these three has developed the notion of agonistic pluralism. The task here is to examine points of comparison between them. I compare the three authors' (...) conceptions of politics and of the dimension of the political. I make the case that their work complements one another, they each endorse broad notions of the political; and they understand politics to be constitutive of social relations. Nevertheless, the forms of politics that they describe differ from one another. It is my contention that these forms of politics are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. However, I maintain that in order for their work to be understood in this way, the political practices described by Connolly and Tully — struggles for self-making and for recognition respectively — must be re-figured as forms of sub-constitutional politics. These forms of politics will make up necessary elements of a viable pluralist society, but they are played out within multiple public spheres made possible by — what we might call — the quasi-republican political constitution elaborated by Mouffe. (shrink)

Inasmuch as Muslim governments all over the world dissociate themselves from despicable acts of terror, few can deny the brutality and violence perpetrated especially by those in authoritative positions like political governments against humanity. Poignant examples are the ongoing massacre of Muslim communities in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan by those government or rebel forces intent on eliminating the other whom they happen to find unworthy of living. This article attempts to map Islamic education’s response to violence and terror often (...) perpetrated against people considered to be in vehement disagreement with another, for instance, Muslim rebel forces assassinating Christians in Syria and destroying ancient monasteries, Muslim jihadist fighters kidnapping and assassinating people in revengeful acts of terror and Muslim government militia quelling resistant forces that oppose the government’s so-called reformist agenda. In arguing against any form of violence, we show how Islamic education cannot and should not be associated with any act of violence. Put differently, we take issue with any act of violence even if minimally applied to disrupt acts of violence. On the contrary, we argue that Islamic education is intimately connected to the practice of public deliberation that engenders a community of becoming that will always undermine violence. We develop our argument in the following way: firstly, we give an account of a maximalist view of Islamic education in relation to the notion of a Muslim community in becoming; secondly, in relation to Agamben’s seminal thoughts on potentiality and becoming, we show that a Muslim community in becoming is averse to violence; finally, we argue as to how forgiveness, risk-taking and civility as instances of deliberation can counteract terror, more specifically on the part of a Muslim community in potentiality and becoming. (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)

How to demarcate the political units within which democracy will be practiced? Although recent years have witnessed a steadily increasing academic interest in this question concerning the boundary problem in democratic theory, social contract theory’s potential for solving it has largely been ignored. In fact, contract views are premised on the assumption of a given people and so presuppose what requires legitimization: the existence of a demarcated group of individuals materializing, as it were, from nowhere and whose members agree among (...) themselves to establish a political order. In order to fill this gap in social contract theory, a distinction is made between three kinds of contract views: Lockean political voluntarism, contractarianism, and contractualism. Each of these views can be interpreted in such a way that it offers a democratic solution to the boundary problem. Ultimately, however, a Rawlsian interpretation of the contractualist solution is defended. (shrink)

The European Union, a pioneer in gender equality policies, is moving from predominantly attending to gender inequality, towards policies that address multiple inequalities. This article argues that there are tendencies at EU level to assume an unquestioned similarity of inequalities, to fail to address the structural level and to fuel the political competition between inequalities. Based upon a comparison of specific sets of inequalities, this article explores where and how structural and political intersectionality might be relevant. It argues that a (...) ‘one size fits all’ approach to addressing multiple discrimination is based on an incorrect assumption of sameness or equivalence of the social categories connected to inequalities and of the mechanisms and processes that constitute them. Focusing on similarities ignores the differentiated character and dynamics of inequalities. It also overlooks the political dimension of equality goals. Moreover, it has become clear that attention to structural mechanisms and to the role of the state and the private sphere in reproducing inequalities is much needed. The final part of the article presents constructive ideas for a more comprehensive way of addressing multiple inequalities. (shrink)

This essay outlines a normative theory of reparations for transitional democracies. The article situates the theory within current critical‐theory debates on recognition and redistribution, and it argues that any model of reparations should aim to achieve what Nancy Fraser calls “status parity.” Such a model should be conceptualized according to a typology of acknowledgment along one axis (symbolic and material) and a typology of recipients (individual and collective) along the other. I conclude by identifying several key contributions that reparations can (...) make to transitional societies. (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)

This article addresses Eric L. Santner’s claim that “there is more political theology in everyday life than we might have ever thought” by analyzing the “theologico-political problem” in the work of three prominent twentieth-century political thinkers—Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt. Schmitt, Strauss, and Arendt share a preoccupation with the crisis of modern political liberalism and confront the theologico-political problem in a similar spirit: although their responses differ dramatically, their individual accounts dwell on the absence of incontestable principles in (...) modern society that can justify life-in-common and the persistence of the political order. Their writings thus engage with the question of the place of “the absolute” in the political realm. In particular, Arendt’s indirect approach to the theologico-political problem is crucial to understanding the radicality of a political world in which traditional certainties can no longer be re-established. The theoretical trajectory I present suggests that the dispersion of political theology in everyday life has a specific corollary: modern politics operates within the tragic and paradoxical nature of its unstable and common origins that cannot be incorporated in exceptionalist versions of the body politic. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is a noble project: an attempt to make citizens philosophize. Critics of deliberative democracy usually claim either that the proposed deliberation threatens an existing moral consensus or, instead, that deliberation is impossible amid power imbalances that oppress the weak. But another problem is that combining democracy and deliberation is inherently an attempt to engage publicly in a private activity—where sensitivity to each interlocutor may require a special form of address. Can this be done? Yes, in some contexts. The (...) tradition of esoteric writing has demonstrated that it is possible to layer one's discourse in such a way that all citizens can partake at a level that suits them. But writing for a public is not really deliberation among equals; it is leadership by the writer of the readers. Genuine dialogue among equals that takes account of their differences is, in contrast, inherently a private affair. (shrink)

Modern thinking about democracy is largely governed by the concept of constituent power. Some versions of the concept of constituent power, however, remain haunted by the spectre of totalitarianism. In this article, I outline an alternative view of the identity of the people whose constituent power generates democratic authority. Broadly speaking, constituent power signifies the idea that all political authority, including that of the constitution, must find its source in some idea of ‘the people’, whose authority is never exhausted by (...) constituted power. The deficiency I seek to address is that of asking who the people is to whom any claim of authority refers, while avoiding the pitfalls of totalitarianism. I show the most famous totalitarian view of constituent power – advanced by Carl Schmitt – to be not only politically unsavoury but also ontologically unjustified. To outline my alternative view, I draw on Jacques Derrida’s concept of just decisions to argue that the undecidable inaugurates collective responsibility by demanding a response. This suggests a view of ‘the people’ as a doing rather than a being. I conclude by showing how this avoids totalitarian views of popular sovereignty by demonstrating its congruency with Claude Lefort’s democratic theory as opposed to totalitarianism. (shrink)

Modern thinking about democracy is largely governed by the concept of constituent power. Some versions of the concept of constituent power, however, remain haunted by the spectre of totalitarianism. In this article, I outline an alternative view of the identity of the people whose constituent power generates democratic authority. Broadly speaking, constituent power signifies the idea that all political authority, including that of the constitution, must find its source in some idea of ‘the people’, whose authority is never exhausted by (...) constituted power. The deficiency I seek to address is that of asking who the people is to whom any claim of authority refers, while avoiding the pitfalls of totalitarianism. I show the most famous totalitarian view of constituent power – advanced by Carl Schmitt – to be not only politically unsavoury but also ontologically unjustified. To outline my alternative view, I draw on Jacques Derrida’s concept of just decisions to argue that the undecidable inaugurates collective responsibility by demanding a response. This suggests a view of ‘the people’ as a doing rather than a being. I conclude by showing how this avoids totalitarian views of popular sovereignty by demonstrating its congruency with Claude Lefort’s democratic theory as opposed to totalitarianism. (shrink)

Richard Sennett can be interpreted as one of the more robust representatives of a current critique with regard to ethnic communities in urban areas, namely, that such ethnic enclaves are a proof of urban disintegration and failing citizenship. Firstly, I take issue with Sennett’s assumption that there is an inherent tension between in-group solidarity and the ability to deal with members of perceived out-groups. Secondly, instead of simply cutting citizens off from the wider public sphere and leaving them politically ineffective, (...) as Sennett argues, urban communities can be instrumental in a struggle for emancipation and equal rights. Thirdly, a sense of belonging is a basic aspect of human well-being. Urban villages or ethnic clusters are able to provide this. Therefore, as long as a local identity is not exclusive or the effect of involuntary segregation, ethno-cultural concentrations in the city are acceptable from the moral-political point of view. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism, a normative endorsement of the plurality or multiplicity of research approaches in science, has recently been advocated by several philosophers (e.g., Kellert et al. 2006, Kitcher 2001, Longino 2013, Mitchell 2009, and Chang 2010). Comparing these accounts of scientific pluralism, one will encounter quite some variation. We want to clarify the different interpretations of scientific pluralism by showing how they incarnate different models of democracy, stipulating the desired interaction among the plurality of research approaches in different ways. Furthermore, (...) the example of scientific pluralism is used to advocate the application of democratic theory to philosophy of science problems in general. Drawing on the parallels between models of science and models of democracy, we can articulate how the plurality of research approaches in science should interact within a democratic framework as well as how to cultivate multiple research approaches in the epistemically most productive way possible. This will not only improve our understanding of scientific plurality, but it can also help us stipulating how different research approaches should interact to constitute the most objective account possible or how the ideal of scientific consensus has to be understood. Ultimately, developing democratic models of science bears on the question of how deeply science and democracy are entwined. (shrink)

The political philosophy of radical democracy has made innumerable invaluable contributions to theories of democracy. However, while radical democrats tend to focus on the political, a cogent and comprehensive framework of law appropriate to radical democracy has only recently been begun to be developed. Interpreting the vast tradition of radical democracy to be based at least on the fundamental tenets of radical equality, anti-foundationalism, and to a lesser extent conflict, this paper argues that the oft-forgotten work of the American legal (...) philosopher Robert Cover may provide critical resources for a radical democratic theory of law. According to Cover, every agent living under law is embedded, or embeds themselves, within a nomos or normative universe. From this nomos legal texts become imbued with widely different meanings, many of which will be mutually incompatible. Cover’s legal anarchism, moreover, gives way to the argument that no agent or institution has a particularly privileged view of the ‘correct’ law. Accordingly, every legal texts gives rise to a proliferation of normative universes which due to their mutual incompatibility will eventually come into conflict with one another. This paper shows that Cover’s normative commitments are highly congruent with those professed by many radical democrats, and that therefore Cover’s legal philosophy furnishes a fruitful basis on which to further theorise a framework of radical democratic or agonistic law that incorporates struggle while remaining committed to equality and disavowing of any determinate foundations. (shrink)

This article draws attention to struggles inherent in discourse about the meaning of participation in a Flemish participatory technology assessment (pTA) on nanotechnologies. It explores how, at the project’s outset, key actors (e.g., nanotechnologists and pTA researchers) frame elements of the process like ‘the public’ and draw on interpretive repertoires to fit their perspective. The examples call into question normative commitments to cooperation, consensus building, and common action that conventionally guide pTA approaches. It is argued that pTA itself must reflect (...) an awareness of competing interests and perspectives inherent in the discourse associated with the meaning of ‘participation’ if it is to incite action beyond vested interests and ensure genuine mutual learning. (shrink)

One of the central issues facing contemporary political theory is the problem of difference. This problem is perhaps clearest in disagreements regarding the role of pluralism between advocates of deliberative, and agonistic, approaches to democracy. According to agonists, deliberative democracy has only paid lip-service to pluralism, emphasising agreement, consensus, and universalism. Instead, agonists argue that we should accommodate incommensurable difference as central to political organisation. But this shift threatens to emphasise particularity at the expense of commonality, so preventing the transformation (...) of social positions. These debates turn largely around the ways in which power is conceived in relation to democratic interaction, with deliberativists emphasising ideals of free and equal discourse, and agonists, the irreducible role of power. I begin by outlining a structural approach to social power, to show how we are all structurally implicated in power relationships. I go on to show how emphasising structural implication shifts us beyond debates that revolve around difference, drawing attention to the more foundational problem of how agents may come to understand these structures and each other, in ways that surpass or transcend the specific constraints acting upon them. Considering this, I develop a complex account of structural implication that emphasises the relationships between social norms, reasoning, and objective power relationships. This approach illuminates lacunae in similar approaches, particularly regarding the way in which structural power disenables us from often seeing structural imbalances of power, and clarifies the ways in which collective political transformation is possible. (shrink)