“DOES DEMOCRACY END IN TERROR?” TRANSFORMATIONS OF ANTITOTALITARIANISM IN POSTWAR FRANCE

Does democracy end in terror? This essay examines how this question acquired urgency in postwar French political thought by evaluating the critique of totalitarianism after the 1970s, its antecedents, and the shifting conceptual idioms that connected them. It argues that beginning in the 1970s, the critique of totalitarianism was reorganized around notions of “the political” and “the social” to bring into view totalitarianism's democratic provenance. This conceptual mutation displaced earlier denunciations of the bureaucratic nature of totalitarianism by foregrounding anxieties over its voluntarist, democratic sources. Moreover, it projected totalitarianism's origins back to the Jacobin discourse of political will to implicate its postwar inheritors like French communism and May 1968. In so doing, antitotalitarian thinkers stoked a reassessment of liberalism and a reassertion of “the social” as a barrier against excessive democratic voluntarism, the latter embodied no longer by Bolshevism but by a totalitarian Jacobin political tradition haunting modern French history.

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Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

The State of the Political ◽

10.5871/bacad/9780197262870.003.0006 ◽

2003 ◽

Author(s):

Duncan Kelly

Keyword(s):

Political Thought ◽

Political Community ◽

The Political ◽

History Of Political Thought ◽

Social Democrat ◽

The Social ◽

Adequate Understanding ◽

History Of ◽

The Individual ◽

The Relationship

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.

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UMA HISTÓRIA DA IDÉIA DE UTOPIA: O REAL E O IMAGINÁRIO NO PENSAMENTO POLÍTICO DE THOMAS MORUS

História Questões & Debates ◽

10.5380/his.v40i0.2740 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Marcos Antônio Lopes

Keyword(s):

Social Order ◽

Political Thought ◽

Intensive Agriculture ◽

The Political ◽

Thomas More ◽

The Social ◽

Agrarian Communities ◽

Article Analysis ◽

History Of

Morus não é o criador do pensamento político utópico, mas é o teórico que fez circular o ideal utópico, em sua corrente mais influente. Foi ele quem criou a palavra Utopia. Morus foi o primeiro a criticar a ordem social orientada pela exploração do trabalho e pela força do dinheiro. Ele é crítico da agricultura intensiva que leva à desestruturação das comunidades agrárias. Como Maquiavel, ele transita pela esfera do poder, uma esfera de ligações perigosas. De um modo diferente, ele tentou também separar a ética da política. Este artigo analisa estes aspectos de seu pensamento político. A history of the idea of utopia: reality and imagination in the political thought of Thomas More Abstract Morus is not the creator of the utopian political thought, but it is the theoretical that makes to circulate the utopian ideal, in its more important version. It went him who created to word Utopia. Morus was the first to criticize the social order guided by the exploration of the work and for force of the money. He is critical of the intensive agriculture that upside down the agrarian communities. As Maquiavel, he walk for the sphere of the power, a sphere of dangerous connections. In a different way, he also tried to separate the ethical of the politics. This article analysis these aspects of its political thought.

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The Political Science Discipline in Argentina: The Political Scientist's National Association's Role

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096509220968 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 42 (03) ◽

pp. 616-618

Author(s):

Diego Mazzoccone ◽

Mariano Mosquera ◽

Silvana Espejo ◽

Mariana Fancio ◽

Gabriela Gonzalez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Nineteenth Century ◽

Political Science ◽

Political Thought ◽

Scientific Method ◽

The Political ◽

Nation State ◽

Science Discipline ◽

The Social ◽

The One

It is very difficult to date the birth of political science in Argentina. Unlike other discipline of the social sciences, in Argentina the first distinction can be made between political thought on the one hand, and political science in another. The debate over political thought—as the reflection of different political questions—emerged in our country in the nineteenth century, especially during the process of constructing the Argentine nation-state. Conversely, political science is defined in a general way as the application of the scientific method to the studies on the power of the state (Fernández 2001).

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Towards a New International Technological Order

Alternatives Global Local Political ◽

10.1177/030437547900400302 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 277-300 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Johan Galtung

Keyword(s):

The Political ◽

Human Beings ◽

Political Will ◽

Alternative Technologies ◽

The Social ◽

Physical Presence ◽

Linear Movement ◽

To Come ◽

Capital Intensive ◽

Mode Of Production

The main thesis of the paper is that technology is not merely a mode of production and therefore neutral; it carries within it a code of structures - economic, social, cultural, and also cognitive. The economic code that inheres in Western Technology demands that industries be capital-intensive, research-intensive, organization-intensive and labour-extensive. On the social plane, the code creates a ‘centre’ and a ‘periphery’, thus perpetuating a structure of inequality. In the cultural arena, it sees the West as entrusted by destiny with the mission of casting the rest of the world in its own mould. In the cognitive field, it sees man as the master of nature, the vertical and individualistic relations between human beings as the normal and natural, and history as a linear movement of progress. The transfer of Western technology is thus a structural-cultural invasion, which is not clearly seen as such parly because it is not accompanied by the West's physical presence (as in the days of colonialism), and partly because the fragmentation inherent in Western technology fragments the perception of the total picture. For techniques that create different structures to come into their own, a very clear perception of the interlocking of technology and structures is needed. Also needed is the political will to use alternative technologies as an instrument to bring about a structural change.

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Politics and Morality in the Thought of Karl Popper

Government and Opposition ◽

10.1111/j.1477-7053.1995.tb00434.x ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 74-85 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kenneth Minogue

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Political Philosophy ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Other ◽

The Political ◽

Karl Popper ◽

Open Society ◽

Other Hand ◽

The Social

LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I FIND KARL POPPER BOTH FASCINATING and irritating. His vigour and lucidity are irresistible, and no one could complain that he fails to engage with the big questions. The problems begin when we consider his political thought. Some think him one of the great liberal philosophers of the century. I on the other hand, while being fascinated by The Open Society and its Enemies, am repelled by the grossness of its caricaturing of most of the thinkers it touches. The Poverty of Historicism is a marvellous text in the philosophy of the social sciences, but the idea of historicism is a straw man. The paradox seems to be that while there is a lot that refers to the political questions of the day, there is virtually nothing which takes up issues of political philosophy directly. The result is that he seems to me always to be on the wrong foot, and my problem is to discover why.

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A CONTROVERSA RELAÇÃO DE J.-J. ROUSSEAU COM A REPÚBLICA DE GENEBRA

Sapere Aude ◽

10.5752/p.2177-6342.2019v10n19p157-171 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (19) ◽

pp. 157-171

Author(s):

Vital Francisco Celestino Alves

Keyword(s):

Present Article ◽

Social Contract ◽

Political Thought ◽

Political Order ◽

Central Axis ◽

The Political ◽

The Social ◽

The Republic

Na filosofia de Jean-Jacques Rousseau encontramos diversos elogios a modelos políticos oriundos da Antiguidade (Esparta e Roma), assim como outros elogios à República de Genebra. A esse último modelo, o pensador dedica a obra Discurso sobre a origem e os fundamentos da desigualdade entre os homens. Entretanto, até que ponto se pode afirmar que a ordenação política genebrina influenciou e contribuiu para a formação do pensamento político de Rousseau? Tendo essa questão como eixo central e objetivando produzir uma reflexão sobre a Genebra de Rousseau, o presente artigo pretende: primeiro, descrever como era a ordem política genebrina; segundo, tratar da relação entre Rousseau e Genebra; e, por último, correlacionar a posição que ocupa a cidade natal do autor com os seus escritos políticos apresentados na Dedicatória e no Contrato social e examinar a consistência das três principais linhas interpretativas que relacionam Genebra à filosofia política de Rousseau.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Rousseau. República de Genebra. Relação.ABSTRACTIn the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau we find several compliments to political models coming from Antiquity (Sparta and Rome), as well as other compliments to the Republic of Geneva. To this last model, the thinker dedicates the work Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. However, to what extent can one affirm that the political order of Geneva influenced and contributed to the formation of Rousseau's political thought? With this question as the central axis and aiming to produce a reflection on Rousseau's Geneva, the present article aims to: first, describe the Genevan political, second, deal with Rousseau's relationship with Geneva, and, finally, correlate the position the author's hometown occupies with his political writings presented in the Dedication and the Social Contract and examine the consistency of the three main interpretive lines relating Geneva to Rousseau's political philosophy.KEYWORDS: Rousseau. Republic of Geneva. Relationship.

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The Two Faces of Contingency

Contributions to the History of Concepts ◽

10.1163/187465609x430809 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 123-139 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kari Palonen

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Political ◽

Conceptual History ◽

The Social ◽

History Of

The work of Pierre Rosanvallon is discussed here from the perspective of the conceptual history of “politics” (La Politique) and of “the political” (La Politique). In Rosanvallon's early work in the second half of the 1970s, there is a marked defence of the autonomy of politics, as a manifestation of contingency, against the language of “society,” then dominant in the social sciences and philosophy. Since the 1980s, Le Politique become a fashionable concept in French political thought, a phenomenon brought about by the reception of both Schmitt and Heidegger, in opposition to mere la politique. Although Rosanvallon can partly be linked to this fashion, he differs from his more philosophical colleagues in two respects: his concept of the political is more historically informed and he refrains from showing contempt for the activity of politics.

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A Return to the Concept

Cultural Politics an International Journal ◽

10.1215/17432197-6609116 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 244-262

Author(s):

Frédérique Matonti

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Jacques Lacan ◽

The Political ◽

Alain Badiou ◽

Publishing World ◽

The Social ◽

May 1968

The journal Cahiers pour l’Analyse was founded in 1966 and disappeared in the aftermath of May 1968. At the time the intellectual and publishing world was dominated by texts that were broadly characterized as “structuralist.” Edited by a board of students at the prestigious École normale supérieure (Jacques-Alain Miller, François Régnault, Alain Grosrichard and Jean-Claude Milner), with the participation of Alain Badiou in its later stages, the journal accorded great importance to Jacques Lacan and to psychoanalysis in general. But it also played a role in Althusser’s political and intellectual strategy a year after the publication of For Marx and Reading Capital. Cahiers pour l’Analyse represents, then, the most complete example of the politicization of structuralism on the eve of May 1968. Yet it also had a focus on political philosophers, such as Machiavelli and Rousseau, and the political writings of classical philosophers such as Hume and Descartes. The editors also favoured the philosophy of the concept (Canguilhem) over phenomenology (particularly in its Sartrean interpretation). Analyzing the content of the journal and published interviews with its authors, this article indicates how the broad aim was to restore primacy of place to philosophy at a point when it was under challenge from the social sciences.

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Tocqueville’s Religious Terror

The Democratic Sublime ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190658151.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 153-180

Author(s):

Jason Frank

Keyword(s):

Political Thought ◽

Human Agency ◽

The Political ◽

Human Beings ◽

Common Cause ◽

Social Question ◽

Individual Agency ◽

The Social ◽

The Common ◽

Collective Actor

One of the central ironies of Alexis de Tocqueville’s political thought was that the democratic era that promised to bring conscious human agency to an equal mankind, freeing human beings from their bondage to tradition and their submission to the sacred, actually threatened them with unprecedented forms of domination. Tocqueville’s sense of “religious terror” is engendered from the spectacle of everyone being “driven willy-nilly along the same road” and having “joined the common cause, some despite themselves, others unwittingly, like blind instruments in the hands of God.” “Religious terror” is both a symptom and a diagnosis of his concern with the deflated status of individual agency in democratic contexts, and with the related eclipse of the political by the social question. This chapter explores this dimension of Tocqueville’s thought and its relation to his denial of such agency to any collective actor, to deny heroism, and its associated grandeur, to the popular will.

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