Between ‘Anti-totalitarianism’ and Radical Democracy

Populism ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-119
Author(s):  
Irem Taşçıoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Emancipatory Politics ◽  
Intellectual Milieu

Abstract Laclau’s theory on populism which is inseparable from his strategic endeavour to formulate a novel form of left-wing emancipatory politics has set off a variety of critiques, most notably from scholars who associate themselves with different strands of democratic theory. This paper picks out and uses Lefortian theory on democracy, utilizing it in order to figure out the different ways in which Laclau’s account could be construed and criticized. It argues that there are two possible interpretations of Lefort’s democratic theory with two different political implications, one liberal and the other radical-democratic and that they provide us with two different ways to formulate a critique of Laclauian populism. It particularly addresses the historical conjuncture from which Lefort’s democratic theory emerges and investigates how his ambiguous encounters with the intellectual milieu in France in the 70s, namely the ‘antitotalitarian moment’ undergird these two possible interpretations. This article’s elaboration on these two interpretations for addressing Laclau’s populism finalizes with a comparison between the political implications of the two and with a new proposal to invigorate counter-populism along the lines of Etienne Balibar as a (Lefortian) radical-democratic alternative to Laclau’s populism.

The Catholic Hierarchy in the Nicaraguan Revolution

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
The Political ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Nicaraguan Revolution ◽  
Clear Majority

The involvement of Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution is a clear manifestation of the profound changes taking place within the Nicaraguan Church as a whole. While a clear majority of the clergy took a stand against the injustices of the Somoza regime, a smaller group of priests and religious demonstrated a more profound commitment to radical structural transformation of society. Although their efforts to organize andconcientizar1rural and urban poor had serious political implications – in fact, many joined the guerrilla as a result of the ‘radicalization of their faith’ – to these priests and religious the political solutions available to counter growing social injustices and government abuses were few: either fight or capitulate. The bishops, on the other hand, were cautious about the pace of change and rejected the violent option, choosing instead an intermediate path. Unfortunately, such an option proved futile in the case of Nicaragua, and finally the bishops justified armed revolution as a viable alternative to systematic repression.

To what question is the Badiouan notion of the subject an answer? On the dialectical elaboration of the concept in his early work

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-120
Author(s):  
Jan-Jasper Persijn
Keyword(s):  
Direct Consequence ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Work Up

Alain Badiou’s elaboration of a subject faithful to an event is commonly known today in the academic world and beyond. However, his first systematic account of the subject ( Théorie du Sujet) was already published in 1982 and did not mention the ‘event’ at all. Therefore, this article aims at tracing back both the structural and the historical conditions that directed Badiou’s elaboration of the subject in the early work up until the publication of L’Être et l’Événément in 1988. On the one hand, it investigates to what extent the (early) Badiouan subject can be considered an exceptional product of the formalist project of the Cahiers pour l’Analyse as instigated by psychoanalytical discourse (Lacan) and a certain Marxist discourse (Althusser) insofar as both were centered upon a theory of the subject. On the other hand, this article examines the radical political implications of this subject insofar as Badiou has directed his philosophical aims towards the political field as a direct consequence of the events of May ’68.

scholarly journals Left-wing populist discourse in Belgium: The effect of the rise of the Parti du Travail de Belgique on mainstream parties

MaRBLe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estelle Paquay
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Populist Party

Since 2009, the rise of the most important Belgian Francophone left-wing populist party, i.e. the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB), has been increasingly seen as a challenge for mainstream parties. Given the lack of research on Belgium within the field of political left-populist discourse, this paper analyses the effect of the growing popularity of the left-populist party on mainstream parties’ discourse. To investigate this issue, a discourse analysis has been conducted following the Modified Spatial Theory which argues that, when triggered, mainstream parties choose between three different strategies (accommodative, dismissive, or adversarial) to respond to the rise of populism. The findings show that, the rise of the PTB has had more effect on the Socialist Party’s discourse, which has accommodated and converged with the PTB on several typically populist issues, while the other two mainstream parties have rather dismissed and tried to discredit the political discourse of the PTB.

The politics of the unities: tragedy and the Risorgimento in Byron and Manzoni

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Anthony Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Political Change ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The One ◽  
Original Approach

This chapter takes an original approach to Byron’s much-discussed engagement with the early Risorgimento by focusing not on biographical aspects, but rather on formal issues. It centres on The Two Foscari in the context of the highly politicised contemporary Italian critical debates about the dramatic unities. In this fashion, it teases out the political implications of Byron’s adherence to the unities by comparing his play to Alessandro Manzoni’s Il conte di Carmagnola, which programmatically violates them. Focusing specifically on the playwrights’ representations of the fifteenth-century mercenary leader, Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, the chapter explores these writers’ use or abuse of the unity of time, in particular. In doing so, it throws light on, and contrasts, Manzoni’s Risorgimento agenda on the one hand and Byron’s generally sceptical attitude about leadership and uncertainty about social and political change on the other.

Radical Democracy with what Demos?

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Alan Busk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Ontology ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Chantal Mouffe ◽  
Right Wing Populism

This paper considers the radical democratic theory of Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau with reference to the recent rise of Right-wing populism. I argue that even as Mouffe and Laclau develop a critical political ontology that regards democracy as an end in itself, they simultaneously exclude certain elements of the demos. In other words, they appeal to formal categories but decide the political content in advance, disqualifying Right-wing movements and discourses without justification. This ambivalence between form and content reveals the limits of Mouffe and Laclau’s brand of radical democracy for understanding and critiquing the present political conjuncture.

scholarly journals Feminist Autoethnography, Gender, and Drug Use

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ettorre
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Gender Analysis ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Political Implications

This article explores autoethnography as one way of doing feminist research in the drugs field. By telling my story during my 40 years experience as a feminist researcher in the drugs field, I aim to help those practicing critical drug scholarship to become familiar with this methodology as a viable way of employing a gender analysis, an employment that is the focus of this special issue. This paper is divided into five related discussions. First, I explain what feminist autoethnography is. Second, I look at how doing feminist “drugs” autoethnography helps to develop empathy. Third, I describe the methods and use of data employed in this paper. Fourth, I tell my story chronologically from 1972 to the present time. Lastly, as with many autoethnographies, my analysis of my “story as data” is left to last and I discuss the political implications of my experiences, while “feeling about” empathy as resonance with the other.

scholarly journals Creating a Collective Identity in The Digital Age: The Perspective of Behavioural Economics

Politeja ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5 (68)) ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Łukasz Młyńczyk
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Behavioural Economics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Measurement Tools ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Political Decisionmaking

This paper comprises four related parts. The first part presents hypotheses regarding the forms of creating a collective identity in the age of digitization and the adopted theoretical assumptions, including conceptualization of concepts. The concept of Daniel Kahneman’s thinking systems is quoted, which was used to analyse the presented phenomenon in relation to the political decisionmaking process. The second section is a presentation of the research problem as a concept that is equivalent to the category of behavioural economics. Next, we explain the pattern of the transition from the left-wing identity policy to its right-wing response. The final part represents an analysis of the Internet collective identity in relation to political risk and profit, while the epilogue presents the political implications of the use of collective identity by measurement tools and consulting entities managing the flow, collection and compilation of data.

Political implications of compassion in Mencius

Diogenes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 039219212097038
Author(s):  
Sarinya Arunkhajornsak
Keyword(s):  
Young Child ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Cultivation ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Universal Love ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Moral Universe ◽  
Political Realm

This paper examines Mencius’ view on compassion in the political realm by proposing that Mencius defends compassionate governance by reconciling the two extremes of Yangist self-love and Mohist universal love. This paper proposes a reading of two famous stories, namely, the story of a young child on the verge of falling into a well, and the story of King Xuan of Qi sparing an ox as paradigmatic cases for understanding Mencius’ account of compassion in the political realm. This paper argues that Mencius succeeds in his defense of governance with compassion against the other two extremes of self-love and altruism. To provide an argument for compatibility with egoism or self-love, this paper offers an analysis of Mencius’ idea of the ruler sharing pleasure with his people instead of denying pleasure for himself. In this sense, a good ruler does not need to sacrifice his self-interest. To counter the demand of universal love of the Mohists, Mencius develops a position that the Confucian ideal ruler, while not sacrificing his self-interests, those interests need to be guided and directed by a proper process of moral cultivation of his compassionate heart so that he can readily share his pleasures with all the peoples in his kingdom. These readings indicate Mencius’ expanded argument for political implications of compassion in the moral universe of the Confucian school.

Becoming a citizen: The chorus in Risorgimento opera

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Gossett
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Meaning Change ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Marxist Analysis ◽  
Prime Location

Just as politics can be analysed as a cultural and symbolic enterprise (that is, as theatre in the broadest sense), so too can theatre or opera (in a narrower sense) be analysed as political. Jonathan Dollimore identifies various conflicting processes at work in Renaissance English theatre: the ‘consolidation’ of power by a dominant order; the ‘subversion of that order’ and the ‘containment of ostensibly subversive pressures’. We need not accept Dollimore's essentially Marxist analysis of these processes in order to recognise the validity of his assertion that ‘the theatre [is] a prime location for the representation and legitimation of power’. But the way such power is consolidated, subverted or contained depends on the political and social systems in which the theatre operates. The issues are complex enough when one focuses on plays produced in Elizabethan or Jacobean London. They become even more difficult to sort out when single works or groups of related works are performed over a period of time in various locations, each with its own societal configuration, as in the different political entities that comprised the Italian peninsula during the first half of the nineteenth century (to which might be added the other European and even American audiences to which they were played). Under such circumstances, how can we measure the political implications of these works? Where does their meaning reside? How does that meaning change as a function of time or geography?

scholarly journals Post-foundational Ontology and the Charge of Social Weightlessness in Radical Democratic Theory: A Response to Lois McNay’s The Misguided Search for the Political

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom N. Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Suffering ◽  
Ontological Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Foundational Ontology

This article responds to the accusation made by Lois McNay in The Misguided Search for the Political that much radical democratic theory is ‘socially weightless’ as a direct result of its turn towards an ontological understanding of the political. It argues that the social weightlessness identified in the work of the particular theorists McNay singles out for critique is not the result of the ontological approach per se. After briefly summarising McNay’s argument, Oliver Marchart’s ontology of political difference is used to defend the ‘search for the political’ against four aspects of McNay’s argument: the status of the ontological in post-foundational thought, the question of universality in relation to the political, the relationship between the social and the political, and that between indeterminacy and agency. Following this, the methodology of the disclosing critique of social suffering that McNay puts forward as an alternative to the ontological paradigm will be examined. This will be shown not only to be compatible with such a paradigm, but to be rooted in the very same parts of Heidegger’s philosophy. Moreover, her approach is found to enhance the ontological approach to the political by recovering its hermeneutical dimension, and in turn reconnecting hermeneutics to the question of the body. These are steps which, if further built upon, could add not only social, but also fleshly weight to ontological theories of the political, strengthening the critical potential of radical democracy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document