Demos distracted

In Chapter 5 Prozorov argues that the ontological contingency that defines democracy is accessible in our lived experience in states of distraction, characterized by the alternation between captivation and boredom. This alternation makes it possible for us to dwell within plural forms of life in a non-definitive manner, retaining our potentiality for being otherwise. He develops this argument by critically re-engaging with Heidegger’s discussion of curiosity and distraction in Being and Time. Prozorov argues that democracy is existentially experienced in the potentiality for perpetual alternation between captivation and boredom in whatever form of life we dwell in, which constitutes our lives as freeform, always manifesting the possibility of being otherwise than they are. In this manner he grounds the possibility of democratic biopolitics in the aspect of the human condition familiar and available to all, thus demonstrating its realizability.

Towards an experimental analytics of government

The Introduction discusses the way the question of democracy has been addressed in the canonical theories of biopolitics, presents the method of the inquiry and briefly outlines the structure of the argument.

Why democracy is good for life

The epilogue addresses the implications of the notion of democratic biopolitics, developed in the book, for addressing the currently perceived crisis of liberal democracy worldwide due to the rise of authoritarian and xenophobic populism.

How to enjoy democracy again (and again)

Chapter 6 argues that the oscillation between captivation and boredom in the distracted dwelling in forms of life is not merely a possible but also an enjoyable and pleasant experience. Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy’s account of pleasure as the experience of one’s formative force in every act of formation, Prozorov argues that the biopolitical conversion of democracy that affirms the experimental, freeform life renders democracy more viable by adding to its normative legitimacy an affective dimension of enjoyment. Democracy is not merely ‘right’ from any given normative perspective but also feels good, since it ensures the possibility of freely forming and transforming our lives without being held captive in any privileged form. Thus, democracy is not merely sustainable in a biopolitical mode but is in fact reinvigorated by its translation into concrete forms of life.

Biopower and the politics of contingency

Chapter 3 offers a biopolitical translation of Claude Lefort’s idea of the democratic regime as characterized by ontological contingency and epistemic indeterminacy. Lefort’s powerful image of the void at the heart of democracy is in the context of biopolitics specified in terms of the absence of any proper form of life and the affirmation of radical pluralism of contingent ways of living. This contingency is, moreover, not itself contingent but is a necessary consequence of the disarticulation of truth, power and ethics in the democratic regime. From this necessary contingency Prozorov infers the principles of freedom, equality and community that are universal conditions of legitimacy for all forms of life in a democracy.

The community of solitary walkers

Chapter 2 addresses a recent reinterpretation of Rousseau by Peter Sloterdijk, which prioritizes his late work The Reveries of the Solitary Walker as politically more important than the theory of sovereignty in The Social Contract. In contrast to Sloterdijk Prozorov reads these two works as by no means opposed but affirming the same thing, the sheer existence of the subject, individual or collective, subtracted from all particular predicates. It is this mode of subtractive subjectivity that Rousseau wishes to oppose to partial interests in society that perpetually threaten to corrupt the general will. Prozorov then shows how the contemporary critique of biopolitics relies on the same logic of subtraction, which necessarily leads it into the same aporia as it did Rousseau: if democracy is only conceivable through the subtraction from all particularism, it ends up unsustainable and indefensible in the face of this very particularism.

Rousseau’s aporia

Chapter 1 revisits Rousseau’s account of the inherently problematic relation between sovereignty and government and addresses the interpretations of this account in contemporary critiques of biopolitics in the work of Badiou, Agamben and Esposito. Prozorov demonstrates that the dualism established by Rousseau between universalist popular sovereignty and particularist acts of government remains at work in contemporary critical literature on biopolitics. As an inherently particularistic mode of government, biopolitics is held to be necessarily opposed to popular sovereignty expressed in general will and can therefore only contaminate or pervert democracy.

Is there a democratic form of life?

Chapter 4 addresses the question of whether the democratic principles of freedom, equality and community constitute a form of life of their own or rather function as the framework for the coexistence of diverse forms of life. While the first possibility is best illustrated by Alain Badiou’s politics of truth, which takes up and radicalizes the Rousseauan tradition, the latter option has been developed in Jean-Luc Nancy’s theory of democracy. Prozorov critically engages with both positions while ultimately opting for the third, inspired by Agamben’s notion of destituent power. Rather than single out any particular form of life as democratic, he argues that democracy may be affirmed from within any particular form of life, but only as long as this form is practiced in the manner that manifests its contingency.