Democracy, Dialectics, and Difference

Democracy, Dialectics, and Difference
Author: Brian C. Lovato
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2015-12-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317363256

It has been nearly two centuries since Marx famously turned Hegel on his head in order to repurpose dialectics as a revolutionary way of thinking about the internal contradictions of our social relations. Despite critiques from post-structuralists, post-colonialists, and others, there has been a resurgence of dialectical thought among political theorists as of late. This resurgence has coincided with a rise in the mention of words like class warfare, socialism, and communism among the general public on the streets of Seattle in 1999, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, in the actions of the Greek anarchists and the Spanish indignados, and in the rallying cry of "we are the 99%" of the Occupy Movement, and in academia. This book explores how it is that dialectical thought might respond to the critiques brought forth by those on the left who are critical of Marxism’s universalizing and authoritarian legacy. Brian C. Lovato singles out Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as the key interlocutors in this ongoing conversation between Marxism and post-structuralism. Laclau and Mouffe argue that Marxist theory is inherently authoritarian, cannot escape a class-reductionist theory of revolutionary subjectivity, and is bound by a closed Hegelian ontology. Lovato argues the opposite by turning to two heterodox Marxist thinkers, Raya Dunayevskaya and C. L. R. James, in order to construct a radically democratic, dynamic, and open conceptualization of dialectical thought. In doing so, he advances a vision of Marxist theory that might serve as a resource to scholars and activists committed not only to combatting capitalism, but also to fighting against colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity. The writings of Dunayevskaya and James allow for Marxism to become relevant again in these tumultuous early years of the 21st century.

Protest Dialectics

Protest Dialectics
Author: Paul Chang
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2015-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0804794308

1970s South Korea is characterized by many as the "dark age for democracy." Most scholarship on South Korea's democracy movement and civil society has focused on the "student revolution" in 1960 and the large protest cycles in the 1980s which were followed by Korea's transition to democracy in 1987. But in his groundbreaking work of political and social history of 1970s South Korea, Paul Chang highlights the importance of understanding the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in this oft-ignored decade. Protest Dialectics journeys back to 1970s South Korea and provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the numerous events in the 1970s that laid the groundwork for the 1980s democracy movement and the formation of civil society today. Chang shows how the narrative of the 1970s as democracy's "dark age" obfuscates the important material and discursive developments that became the foundations for the movement in the 1980s which, in turn, paved the way for the institutionalization of civil society after transition in 1987. To correct for these oversights in the literature and to better understand the origins of South Korea's vibrant social movement sector this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in the 1970s.

The Dialectics of Democracy

The Dialectics of Democracy
Author: Dimitrios Kivotidis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 100386127X

This book examines how the democratic form and the struggle for democracy reflects, influences and shapes the struggle for social emancipation. In the context of increased exploitation, rising inequality, and intensified struggle for social justice in the aftermath of the economic crisis, the channelling of populism through liberal democratic institutions has had contradictory effects: giving rise to both Corbyn and Brexit, Sanders and Trump, Syriza and the Golden Dawn, to name but a few. How can we make sense of these developments? In response, this book approaches the idea of democracy from a socialist constitutionalist standpoint and explores institutional forms and principles that challenge and aim at the transformation of the extant social order. This process involves the challenging of well-established ideas of the liberal viewpoint, as well as an unwavering focus on the issue of class rule which enables the highlighting of limitations of -not only mainstream but also heterodox- contemporary approaches to constitutionalism and democracy. Ultimately, democracy is conceived as a process of struggle for creating the conditions, material as well as intellectual, for its actualisation. This significant work of legal and political theory will be of considerable interest to those working in these areas to make sense of contemporary developments, and to further the causes of social justice and social emancipation.

Negativity and Democracy

Negativity and Democracy
Author: Vasilis Grollios
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317502213

The current political climate of uncompromising neoliberalism means that the need to study the logic of our culture—that is, the logic of the capitalist system—is compelling. Providing a rich philosophical analysis of democracy from a negative, non-identity, dialectical perspective, Vasilis Grollios encourages the reader not to think of democracy as a call for a more effective domination of the people or as a demand for the replacement of the elite that currently holds power. In doing so, he aspires to fill in a gap in the literature by offering an out-of-the-mainstream overview of the key concepts of totality, negativity, fetishization, contradiction, identity thinking, dialectics and corporeal materialism as they have been employed by the major thinkers of the critical theory tradition: Marx, Engels, Horkheimer, Lukacs, Adorno, Marcuse, Bloch and Holloway. Their thinking had the following common keywords: contradiction, fetishism as a process and the notion of spell and all its implications. The author makes an innovative attempt to bring these concepts to light in terms of their practical relevance for contemporary democratic theory.

The Dialectics of Citizenship

The Dialectics of Citizenship
Author: Bernd Reiter
Publisher: MSU Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2013-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1628951621

What does it mean to be a citizen? What impact does an active democracy have on its citizenry and why does it fail or succeed in fulfilling its promises? Most modern democracies seem unable to deliver the goods that citizens expect; many politicians seem to have given up on representing the wants and needs of those who elected them and are keener on representing themselves and their financial backers. What will it take to bring democracy back to its original promise of rule by the people? Bernd Reiter’s timely analysis reaches back to ancient Greece and the Roman Republic in search of answers. It examines the European medieval city republics, revolutionary France, and contemporary Brazil, Portugal, and Colombia. Through an innovative exploration of country cases, this study demonstrates that those who stand to lose something from true democracy tend to oppose it, making the genealogy of citizenship concurrent with that of exclusion. More often than not, exclusion leads to racialization, stigmatizing the excluded to justify their non-membership. Each case allows for different insights into the process of how citizenship is upheld and challenged. Together, the cases reveal how exclusive rights are constituted by contrasting members to non-members who in that very process become racialized others. The book provides an opportunity to understand the dynamics that weaken democracy so that they can be successfully addressed and overcome in the future.

The Great Regression

The Great Regression
Author: Heinrich Geiselberger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2017-05-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509522395

We are living through a period of dramatic political change – Brexit, the election of Trump, the rise of extreme right movements in Europe and elsewhere, the resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia and a concerted assault on the liberal values and ideals associated with cosmopolitanism and globalization. Suddenly we find ourselves in a world that few would have imagined possible just a few years ago, a world that seems to many to be a move backwards. How can we make sense of these dramatic developments and how should we respond to them? Are we witnessing a worldwide rejection of liberal democracy and its replacement by some kind of populist authoritarianism? This timely volume brings together some of the world's greatest minds to analyse and seek to understand the forces behind this 'great regression'. Writers from across disciplines and countries, including Paul Mason, Pankaj Mishra, Slavoj Zizek, Zygmunt Bauman, Arjun Appadurai, Wolfgang Streeck and Eva Illouz, grapple with our current predicament, framing it in a broader historical context, discussing possible future trajectories and considering ways that we might combat this reactionary turn. The Great Regression is a key intervention that will be of great value to all those concerned about recent developments and wondering how best to respond to this unprecedented challenge to the very core of liberal democracy and internationalism across the world today. For more information, see: www.thegreatregression.eu

The Dialectics of Liberty

The Dialectics of Liberty
Author: Roger E. Bissell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498592104

This collection of essays explores the ways in which the defense of liberty can be bolstered by use of a dialectical method—that is, a mode of analysis devoted to grasping the full context of philosophical, cultural, and social factors requisite to the sustenance of human freedom. Its strength lies in the variety of disciplines and perspectives represented by contributors who apply explicitly dialectical tools to a classical liberal / libertarian analysis of social and cultural issues. In its conjoining of a dialectical method, typically associated with the socialist left, to a defense of individual liberty, typically associated with the libertarian right, this anthology challenges contemporary attitudes on both ends of the political spectrum. Though this conjunction of dialectics and liberty has been explored before in several works, including a trilogy of books written by one of our coeditors (Chris Matthew Sciabarra), this volume will be the first one of its kind to bring together accomplished scholars in political science, economics, philosophy, aesthetics, psychology, law, history, education, and rhetoric.

Dialectics and Contemporary Politics

Dialectics and Contemporary Politics
Author: John Grant
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2011-06-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1136703233

Dialectics and Contemporary Politics develops a full theory of dialectics in order to reset the terms of dialectical critique and affirm its ability to produce radical insights about contemporary society. Dialectical thought has been the subject of sustained criticism since the 1960s, when competing approaches such as structuralism, genealogy, deconstruction and post-Marxism took political theorizing in new directions.

The Art of Freedom

The Art of Freedom
Author: Juliane Rebentisch
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2018-03-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0745693148

The concept of democratic freedom refers to more than the kind of freedom embodied by political institutions and procedures. Democratic freedom can only be properly understood if it is grasped as the expression of a culture of freedom that encompasses an entire form of life. Juliane Rebentisch’s systematic and historical approach demonstrates that we can learn a great deal about the democratic culture of freedom from its philosophical critics. From Plato to Carl Schmitt, the critique of democratic culture has always been articulated as a critique of its ãaestheticization“. Rebentisch defends various phenomena of aestheticization Ð from the irony typical of democratic citizens to the theatricality of the political Ð as constitutive elements of democratic culture and the notion of freedom at the heart of its ethical and political self-conception. This work will be of particular interest to students of Political Theory, Philosophy and Aesthetics.