Agonistic Pluralism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

If politics is ultimately about our deepest fears and desires rather than about, say, tax policy or better health care, then what place is there for a Left whose raison d’être will always be tied to improving the economic fortunes of the... more

If politics is ultimately about our deepest fears and desires rather than about, say, tax policy or better health care, then what place is there for a Left whose raison d’être will always be tied to improving the economic fortunes of the least fortunate? One answer is to begin to outline an “economics of meaning,” where economic or class critiques are a means to channel anger, create meaning, and build solidarity rather than to implement better policy outcomes (although, of course, policy changes would be good on their own, for moral rather than necessarily electoral reasons). This requires changing standard conceptions of what elections are for and what it means to win.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976... more

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Who has the authority to assign responsibility for international crimes? There is a simple answer: international tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet this obvious response obscures further questions... more

Who has the authority to assign responsibility for international crimes? There is a simple answer: international tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet this obvious response obscures further questions regarding where the political authority to create international tribunals comes from, as well as the vital moral question regarding how courts are constituted as actors with the capacity to assign blame. In modern international politics authority has traditionally rested with states, meaning that rightful legal institutions were created and justified by the consent of states. The ICC is granted authority in this way, as it was created through a treaty negotiated and signed by states. Such a procedural response, however, obscures as much as it reveals about the politics and morality of assigning responsibility for international crimes. Asking how a new international authority is constituted and justified as an actor with the political power to try state officials and other international criminals, and to embody and defend supposedly emergent norms of global justice, is a more contentious and difficult question that takes us beyond questions of positive law.

Chantal Mouffe’s conceptualization of a deliberatively forged consensus as a hegemony and her assertion that adversarial politics best nurtures the conditions of freedom have had a profound influence on contemporary democratic thought.... more

Chantal Mouffe’s conceptualization of a deliberatively forged consensus as a hegemony and her assertion that adversarial politics best nurtures the conditions of freedom have had a profound influence on contemporary democratic thought. This article takes a critical view of this trend, arguing that a norm of consensus is a very precondition, rather than impediment, for the kind of pluralistic democracy Mouffe and other agonists wish to promote. It is asserted that Mouffe’s dehistoricized refutation of consensus lacks causal or explanatory relevance to how concrete actors embedded in empirical situations relate to one another and that the very preparedness to find something acceptable about another is at the heart of what it means to treat others justly.

The way in which societies institutionalize “collective memory” is one of the most important aspects of contemporary politics, feeding directly into the constitution of individual and communal identities, and creating sources of discord... more

The way in which societies institutionalize “collective memory” is one of the most important aspects of contemporary politics, feeding directly into the constitution of individual and communal identities, and creating sources of discord and dialogue. This essay explores some of the most significant issues at stake in debates over the political uses of the past. I suggest that it is important to distinguish between three modes of historical consciousness, memory, mythology, and critical history. I then offer a critique of Avishai Margalit’s "The Ethics of Memory" (2002), arguing that in failing to allow space for “acknowledging” the plurality of communal myths his strong communitarian conception of mnemonic ethics leaves room for the perpetuation of asymmetric power relations and the imposition of hegemonic identities. Developing this line of thought, the essay then explores some of the ways in which agonistic democratic theorists might think through the relationship between past and present, myth and history. I argue that it is necessary to avoid procedures and institutions that entrench diverse identities while simultaneously establishing conditions in which different communities can freely propound their historical identity-constitutive claims.

In recent years a growing number of democratic theorists have proposed ways to increase citizen engagement, while channeling those democratic energies in positive directions and away from systematic marginalization, exclusion, and... more

In recent years a growing number of democratic theorists have proposed ways to increase citizen engagement, while channeling those democratic energies in positive directions
and away from systematic marginalization, exclusion, and intolerance. One novel answer is provided by a strain of democratic theory known as agonistic pluralism, which valorizes adversarial engagement and recognizes the marginalizing tendencies implicit in drives to consensus and stability. However, the divergences between competing variants of agonistic pluralism remain largely under-developed or unrecognized. In this piece, I address this shortcoming, examining these strains of agonism around the constraints placed upon democratic discourse. I argue that the ‘associative agonism’ of theorists such as Bonnie Honig and William Connolly offers the best means for cultivating virtues necessary to revitalize a contentious democratic politics which also fosters receptivity to pluralism and difference.

In December 2008, Athens saw an eruption of violent protests that followed the murder of a teenager by a policeman. Initially reacting to police violence, the protestors did not articulate a specific agenda. The rallies, which mobilised a... more

In December 2008, Athens saw an eruption of violent protests that followed the murder of a teenager by a policeman. Initially reacting to police violence, the protestors did not articulate a specific agenda. The rallies, which mobilised a substantial part of the population – particularly the youth – dissipated a few weeks later. Similar outbreaks have taken place in other European cities in recent years (e.g. the Paris banlieues) and warrant a number of questions with regards to the capacity of our states and our cities to nurture a strong democratic life, acknowledging the role of conflict and preventing its violent expression.

This theoretical essay speculates upon the relation of a building and its site, approaching place both historically and spatially. The chronicle of the creation of the New Acropolis Museum (NAM) in Athens is presented revealing a long... more

This theoretical essay speculates upon the relation of a building and its site, approaching place both historically and spatially. The chronicle of the creation of the New Acropolis Museum (NAM) in Athens is presented revealing a long period of political dispute, a series of architectural competitions, and cancellations, yet redefining the Athenian context within Bernard Tschumi’s winning design proposal was to be erected in 2009. A diverse mix of voices from archaeologists, museologists, historians, and politicians to local people whose houses were to be demolished, participated in the concept configuration in an attempt to clarify what exactly such a museum ought to signify. This polyphony resulted in a lengthy political struggle which is examined through the lens of Chantal Mouffe and her political theory of plurastic agonism.
The building of the NAM materializes a political concept that addresses the reunification of the Elgin Marbles, however, represented as an autonomous object inserted in the Athenian landscape. This indicates a gap – a ‘parallax gap’ – between the inside and the outside of the building, between content and context. The NAM seen here as an integral part of the Athenian city gives birth to a dialectical image in which the actual building, ‘self-referentially,’ seems to confine itself to the inherited or hegemonic aesthetics. While Architecture and politics conflict in their mutual attempt to reconstruct the past, the dialectical image that arises by situating the NAM in the Athenian context mobilizes the lay viewer to act as critic who sees the city anew as a juxtaposition of historical layers.

Der Begriff des sozialen Bandes wird in Alltags- und Wissenschaftssprache gerne verwendet, wenn es darum geht, eine Krise des Sozialen zu diagnostizieren: »Das soziale Band reißt«, heißt es dann. Was aber ist das soziale Band? Wie wird es... more

Der Begriff des sozialen Bandes wird in Alltags- und Wissenschaftssprache gerne verwendet, wenn es darum geht, eine Krise des Sozialen zu diagnostizieren: »Das soziale Band reißt«, heißt es dann. Was aber ist das soziale Band? Wie wird es von wem geknüpft? Und wie weit lässt es sich dehnen, bevor es tatsächlich reißt? Um die Fragen zu beantworten, verfolgt diese Edition drei Ziele: Das grundlagentheoretische Vorhaben besteht in einer Klärung, Ausdifferenzierung und Systematisierung unterschiedlicher
historischer Konzeptionen des sozialen Bandes; das zeitdiagnostische Vorhaben richtet sich auf eine Untersuchung gegenwärtiger Erosionen von sozialen Bindungen und das explorative Vorhaben auf die Sichtbarmachung von alternativen Formen der Sozialintegration.

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space... more

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.

The Guide to Common Urban Imaginaries in Contested Spaces is about collective spatial practices that operate in contested spaces, contributing to urban peace building processes. They do so thanks to the commoning processes that challenge... more

The Guide to Common Urban Imaginaries in Contested Spaces is about collective spatial practices that operate in contested spaces, contributing to urban peace building processes. They do so thanks to the commoning processes that challenge dominant divisive narratives, offer alternatives to segregating urban reconstruction approaches, and advocate for the transformation of ethnic conflicts into urban controversies. The Guide departs from the “Hands-on Famagusta” project, the instigator for the emergence of such collective spatial practices across the divided Cypriot territory, and opens up to other similar contexts. Architecture as urban practice, by virtue of the material and immaterial technologies devised by
the “Hands-on Famagusta” project team, acquires agencies that support the transformation of divisive representations of contested territories into territories of-common-concern.

A strand of Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalism that emerged in 2008 offers an unconventional rejoinder to evangelical efforts to intensify conversions. Pentecostals assert that Christ offers instantaneous salvation whereas Theravada Buddhism... more

A strand of Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalism that emerged in 2008 offers an unconventional rejoinder to evangelical efforts to intensify conversions. Pentecostals assert that Christ offers instantaneous salvation whereas Theravada Buddhism demands slow passage through many lifetimes of suffering. In contrast to concomitant political efforts to curb conversions, one maverick Buddhist monk implicitly responded to such competitive theological provocations by enlisting devotees to engage in ritual and moral cultivation to foreshorten the far-future arrival of the messianic Bodhisatva Maitreya. Neither derivative, nor 'syncretic', the maverick's efforts to fortify Buddhism are nevertheless dialogically responsive to multiple sources of religious competition. Following the traffic of aspiration, contestation, and charismatic affinity between Buddhism and rival religiosities, on one side, and within Buddhism, on the other, the ethnography discloses a multi-religious milieu. Within it, several competing religiosities stir the anxieties of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists. Old and new rivalries pose constraints, even as they provide fodder for religious innovation.

Axel Honneth may be criticised for reducing political philosophy to moral psychology. In what follows, I argue that if his theory of recognition is reframed as one of democracy, quite another picture will appear. To do this, I... more

Axel Honneth may be criticised for reducing political philosophy to moral psychology. In what follows, I argue that if his theory of recognition is reframed as one of democracy, quite another picture will appear. To do this, I systematically reconstruct Honneth’s stance as a multidimensional version of radical democracy. The question I discuss is the manner in which this framework combines the three dimensions of democratic deliberation, culture, and conflict. I then discuss Honneth’s picture from both a deliberative and agonistic viewpoint. How one understands the way in which he combines the abovementioned dimensions is dependent upon which one of these two approaches one may choose. I claim that when taken together, these three dimensions form the grounding of a radical-democratic understanding of a struggle for recognition, which I term institutional agonism.

This chapter discusses how Arendt's understanding of constitutional politics is predicated on its unburdening from the 'social question'. It considers how an agonistic reading of Arendt might lend it self to a radical-democratic... more

This chapter discusses how Arendt's understanding of constitutional politics is predicated on its unburdening from the 'social question'. It considers how an agonistic reading of Arendt might lend it self to a radical-democratic understanding of constitutional politics. It shows how this founders since there is no place for recognizing the political significance of social antagonism within the horizon of Arendt's constitutional thought. The paper concludes that the stark opposition between necessity and freedom that Arendt posits at the ontological level makes her otherwise inspiring image of the world-disclosing quality of constituent power inadequate for understanding the dynamics of politicization and conditions of possibility for social transformation.

Una de las cuestiones más debatidas en el pensamiento político contemporáneo es la de cómo articular una noción de comunidad democrática capaz de integrar inclusivamente a la diversidad de realidades identitarias coexistentes en las... more

Una de las cuestiones más debatidas en el pensamiento político contemporáneo es la de cómo articular una noción de comunidad democrática capaz de integrar inclusivamente a la diversidad de realidades identitarias coexistentes en las actuales sociedades democráticas y pluralistas. La moderna concepción del Estado democrático-liberal, vinculada prioritariamente a la garantía de derechos individuales y a una anémica ingeniería institucional de elección de gobernantes, es cuestionada desde distintos frentes teóricos y políticos que pujan por una profundización del aspecto democrático de aquella dupla conceptual. En este contexto, buena parte de los estudios sobre la democracia parecen encaminarse hacia la búsqueda de alternativas a los enfoques minimalistas, agregativos o economicistas, hegemónicos durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX. El presente trabajo focaliza en dos de estas teorías que, aceptando los pilares fundamentales del liberalismo político, procuran radicalizar el carácter democrático del Estado moderno, a saber: la democracia deliberativa, promovida por Jürgen Habermas, y el pluralismo agonístico, que defiende Chantal Mouffe.

Claude Leforts "Mein Anliegen ist die Wiederherstellung der politischen Philosophie" 1nicht gerade bescheiden formuliert Claude Lefort so 1983 das Projekt seines politischen Denkens. Ein wenig überraschend darüber hinaus, bescheinigt man... more

Claude Leforts "Mein Anliegen ist die Wiederherstellung der politischen Philosophie" 1nicht gerade bescheiden formuliert Claude Lefort so 1983 das Projekt seines politischen Denkens. Ein wenig überraschend darüber hinaus, bescheinigt man doch allenthalben John Rawls, mit seiner "Theory of Justice" bereits 1971 eine Wiederbelebung der politischen Philosophie geleistet zu haben. Ungeachtet der Tragweite eines solchen Unterfangens fällt die Aufmerksamkeit, die Leforts Schriften außerhalb des französischen Kontextes zuteil wird im Vergleich zur Rezeption der Arbeiten von Rawls gering aus. Jenseits der wie auch immer gearteten Gründe für dieses Rezeptionsgefälle, eignen dem lefortschen politischen Denken Züge, die im angelsächsischen politiktheoretischen Diskurs selten anzutreffen sind. Es sind die Bedingungen der Freiheit, die Lefort weniger durch rationalistische Deduktion als vielmehr mittels ontologisch orientierter Rekonstruktion der demokratischen Gesellschaftsform freizulegen sucht. Dabei erweitert er den demokratietheoretischen Skopus um ein Denken des Symbolischen. Die Bedingungen der Freiheit, das Dispositiv der Demokratie, liegen in einem Zusammenwirken von wirklicher und symbolischer Ebene, von Sichtbarem und Unsichtbarem. In einer stärker bildhaft und narrativ als systematisch verfahrenden Argumentation kehrt Lefort einem rationalistischen Vokabularso den Gehalt des Symbolischen einer demokratischen Gesellschaftsform hervorhebendden Rücken. Nicht allein eine den Mainstream der politischen Theorie kontrastierende Originalität in Form und Inhalt, sondern vor allem der Versuch einer Offenlegung der Bedingungen der Möglichkeit und der Quellen der Gefährdung von Freiheit ist es, um den sich eine Auseinandersetzung mit der politischen Philosophie Leforts lohnt. Vor diesem Hintergrund scheint es sinnvoll, seine Rekonstruktion der demokratischen Gesellschaftsform in fünf Schritten nachzuvollziehen. Zunächst zeigt sich die Unterscheidung zwischen politischer Philosophie und politischer Wissenschaft für das Verständnis des lefortschen politischen Denkens als einer Rückkehr des Politischen wesentlich (1). Sodann entfaltet sich die spezifische Form der Demokratie anschaulich erst vor dem Profil alternativer Weisen der Formierung des Gesellschaftlichen. Aus diesem Grund soll über den Umweg der Monarchie 1 Lefort, Claude (1990): Die Frage der Demokratie, in: Rödel, Ulrich (Hg.): Autonome Gesellschaft und libertäre Demokratie, Frankfurt a.M., 281 (im Folgenden FD abgekürzt).

Not published yet. It is argued that agonistic democracy fails to fully distinguish itself from delibertive democracy and so it shares similar shortcomings. basically, agonistic democracy is unable to think about conflict as radical... more

Not published yet.
It is argued that agonistic democracy fails to fully distinguish itself from delibertive democracy and so it shares similar shortcomings. basically, agonistic democracy is unable to think about conflict as radical contestation of power.

This short essay examines Étienne Balibar's readings of Jacques Derrida and deconstruction. The text is framed as a review of two books by Balibar: 'Equaliberty' and 'Violence and Civility'. After describing the context of those readings,... more

This short essay examines Étienne Balibar's readings of Jacques Derrida and deconstruction. The text is framed as a review of two books by Balibar: 'Equaliberty' and 'Violence and Civility'. After describing the context of those readings, I propose a broader reflection on the ambiguous relationship between 'post-Marxism' and 'deconstruction', focusing on concepts such as 'violence', 'cruelty', 'sovereignty' and 'property'. I also raise methodological questions related to the 'use' of deconstructive notions in political theory debates.

A sustained discussion of James Tully's constitutional agonism.

In this paper, I discuss contemporary readings of Machiavelli (styled ‘radical’) that perceive in his work the foundations for what they conceive as a political ontology — an ontology based on force, potency and conflictuality. I contest... more

In this paper, I discuss contemporary readings of Machiavelli (styled ‘radical’) that perceive in his work the foundations for what they conceive as a political ontology — an ontology based on force, potency and conflictuality. I contest this interpretation, both for philological and theoretical reasons. Through readings of Foucault, Deleuze, Esposito, Negri and Abensour (among others), I interrogate the notion of Machiavelli’s ‘realism’, and challenge the traditional articulation between ‘force’ and ‘reality’ with reference to Derrida's writings on force, potency and virtuality. This essay takes aim not only at the fashionable notion of ‘political ontology’, but also at the use that is made of it in allegedly progressive circles within disciplines such as political science and International Relations.

Staat und Politik sind für Ernst Curtius und Jacob Burckhardt Kategorien, um in ihren einflussreichen Darstellungen der Griechischen Geschichte bzw. Kulturgeschichte die Welt der Geschichte von der Vorgeschichte zu trennen. Innerhalb des... more

Staat und Politik sind für Ernst Curtius und Jacob Burckhardt Kategorien, um in ihren einflussreichen Darstellungen der Griechischen Geschichte bzw. Kulturgeschichte die Welt der Geschichte von der Vorgeschichte zu trennen. Innerhalb des Raums der Geschichte setzen sie die Akzente jedoch unterschiedlich – je nach politischer Überzeugung. Im statischen Geschichtsbild von Curtius ist die homerische Monarchie – gemessen am Vorbild der preußischen – der Höhepunkt, für Burckhardt die aristokratische Republik der ‚heroischen‘ Zeit. Beiden gemeinsam ist das Lob für den Wettkampf, solange er von Regeln eingehegt bleibt. Insgesamt erweisen sich beide Geschichtskonzeptionen als eine rückwärts gewandte Utopie und eine Geschichte ohne Zukunft, beruhend auf der Methode einer konservativ-organologisch verankerten Wesensmethodologie.

Radical democrats highlight dramatic moments of political action that disrupt everyday habits of perception, which sustain unequal social relations. In doing so, however, we sometimes neglect how social conditions, such as precarious... more

Radical democrats highlight dramatic moments of political action that disrupt everyday habits of perception, which sustain unequal social relations. In doing so, however, we sometimes neglect how social conditions, such as precarious employment, social dislocation and everyday exposure to violence, might undermine political agency or be contested in uneventful ways. Despite their differences, two thinkers who have significantly influenced radical democratic theory (Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière) have been similarly criticised for contributing to such a socially weightless picture of politics. However, attending to how they are preoccupied by the social conditions of inequality and loneliness enables us to recognize two distinct aspects of democratic politics: emancipation and civility. Cultivating an interpretive flexibility to shift between these aspects of politics might enable radical democrats to more clearly picture how struggles for appearances are limited and shaped by the social conditions within which they are enacted.

Metaphern prägen das Nachdenken über Politik, indem sie einige Argumente als besonders plausibel nahelegen, andere dagegen in den Hintergrund der Aufmerksamkeit rücken. Im 20. Jahrhundert steigt eine Metapher in besonderer Weise zu einer... more

Metaphern prägen das Nachdenken über Politik, indem sie einige Argumente als besonders plausibel nahelegen, andere dagegen in den Hintergrund der Aufmerksamkeit rücken. Im 20. Jahrhundert steigt eine Metapher in besonderer Weise zu einer Leitfigur der theoretischen Reflexion von Politik auf: die Metapher des Spiels. Als Metapher des Schauspiels prägt sie ab den 1950er Jahren eine zunächst kritische, dann aber konstruktive Auseinandersetzung mit Repräsentations-prozessen; als Metapher des agonalen Wettstreits verändert sie die Wahrnehmung von demokratischen Konflikten. In beiden Erscheinungsformen sind Spielmetaphern ein Reflexionsmedium von Kontingenzerfahrungen. Die Autorin erzählt die Geschichte politischer Spielmetaphern anhand von fünf Fallstudien aus dem deutschen, englischen und französischen Sprachraum: den französischen Situationisten, Jean-François Lyotard, Hannah Arendt, der agonalen Demo-kratietheorie und Jacques Rancière.

Human rights are a suspect project – this seems the only sensible starting point today. This suspicion, however, is not absolute and the desire to preserve and reform human rights persists for many of us. The most important contemporary... more

Human rights are a suspect project – this seems the only sensible starting point today. This suspicion, however, is not absolute and the desire to preserve and reform human rights persists for many of us. The most important contemporary critiques of human rights focus on the problematic consequences of the desire for universal rights. These criticisms are pursued with varying intensities, as some defenders of human rights are willing to accept elements of this critique in their reformulations, while staunch opponents remain wary of the desire to think and act in language of human rights because of the deep pathologies of rights-thinking as a political ethics. Yet, we hesitate to abandon human rights. In this paper, I look at the political critique of human rights in greater detail. I argue that an agonistic account drawing on the work of William Connolly and Bonnie Honig offers the best response to the most important contemporary critiques of human rights, and a clearer account of what it means to claim that human rights do valuable work. The key developments of this agonistic view of human rights are its focus on the ambiguity of “humanity” as a political identity, and the challenge to legitimate authority and membership that new rights claims make. In the end, human rights are defended as a universal political ethos focused on the pluralization and democratization of global politics.

L’un des aspects frappants de la pensée anarchiste est qu’elle rend futile la philosophie politique classique dans sa quête du meilleur régime. Plus de deux millénaires de réflexions sur la forme à donner au bon gouvernement sont ainsi... more

L’un des aspects frappants de la pensée anarchiste est qu’elle rend futile la philosophie politique classique dans sa quête du meilleur régime. Plus de deux millénaires de réflexions sur la forme à donner au bon gouvernement sont ainsi congédiés et renvoyés à leurs limites, à savoir l’incapacité à penser hors de l’Etat et hors des formes institutionnelles figées. Qu’importe qu’il y ait un ou plusieurs chefs, qu’ils soient héréditaires ou élus ou que les pouvoirs soient concentrés ou séparés : dès lors que l’on garde comme postulats la nécessité d’un clivage entre gouvernants et gouvernés ou l’impératif d’adhésion à des valeurs homogènes, ce n’est jamais qu’un seul type d’organisation politique qui est alors discuté. Mais faut-il faire une exception pour la démocratie ? Après tout, elle satisferait à des exigences de justice, d’égalité, d’ouverture à l’altérité, etc., que les autres ordres politico-institutionnels ne peuvent remplir. Dans certaines conditions, anarchisme et démocratie pourraient donc converger au point de devenir presque synonymes. C’est l’hypothèse que nous allons réfuter ici en montrant les apories des théories de Lefort, Castoriadis, Laclau et Abensour. Si l’anarchisme est bien comme nous le soutiendrons non le simple rejet de l’Etat, mais la décision répétée d’un individu ou d’un groupe d’individus quant à ses propres normes d’existence dans une situation de pluralisme véritable, donc une forme paroxystique de choix politique et moral située en amont de toute organisation de la Cité, alors il ne peut accorder de faveur particulière à un type de régime ou un autre.

In this article, I deconstruct the concept of legitimacy (notably in the form elaborated by Max Weber) by emphasising its conceptual complicity with the notion of sovereignty. Through an analysis of Derrida's critique of Austin's theory... more

In this article, I deconstruct the concept of legitimacy (notably in the form elaborated by Max Weber) by emphasising its conceptual complicity with the notion of sovereignty. Through an analysis of Derrida's critique of Austin's theory of performativity, I elaborate another, non-ontological 'concept' of legitimacy, located before and beyond sociological methodology, International Relations theory, and performative ontologies of power. This legitimation-to-come signifies the structural fallibility and pervertibility of the performative, and instantiates the archi-originary force of an unconditional resistance, conditioning both the position and the deconstruction of ontologies of sovereign ipseity (ipsocracy). Pursuing the efforts of Cynthia Weber and Rob Walker, I attempt to sketch the implications of this post-performative legitimacy with respect to the protocols of legitimation of International Relations theory and sociological methodologies, through an analysis of their persistent ontological presuppositions.

Paul Feyerabend is often associated with a destructive criticism leading to an anarchism that flouts every rule and a relativism that treats all opinions as equal. This negative stereotype is based on ignorance and rumour rather than on... more

Paul Feyerabend is often associated with a destructive criticism leading to an anarchism that flouts every rule and a relativism that treats all opinions as equal. This negative stereotype is based on ignorance and rumour rather than on any real engagement with his texts. Feyerabend's work from beginning to end turns around problems of ontology and realism, culminating in the outlines of a sophisticated form of pluralist realism. This largely unknown ontological turn taken by Feyerabend in the last decade of his life was based on four strands of argument: historical considerations, cosmological criticism, complementarity, and the primacy of democracy.

The flag protests in Northern Ireland (2012–13) offer an opportunity on the one hand to examine the politics of dispossession, national identity, decline and political violence in loyalist areas in Belfast. On the other, they are an... more

The flag protests in Northern Ireland (2012–13) offer an opportunity on the one hand to examine the politics of dispossession, national identity, decline and political violence in loyalist areas in Belfast. On the other, they are an opportunity to examine of hope, leadership and change within working class loyalism – not least, around the re-imagining of what Britishness can/could or perhaps should mean in post-Agreement Northern Ireland. This article offers an activist-academic perspective on and interpretation of the meaning and potential of those protests around how they reveal both a fracturing and potential for rethinking Britishness. It suggests the possibilities and limits of an inclusive, civic, rather than ethnic, national identity, and a sense of Britishness sufficient to the task of agonistic (as opposed to antagonistic)
engagement and contestation with Irish nationalism and republicanism. By antagonistic I mean
relations that are characterised in whole or part in terms of ‘friend-enemy’ thus containing within them the possibility of violence, while by agonistic I mean oppositional relations that do not contain this threat of violence. Agonism (from Greek agon, meaning ‘struggle’) emphasises the potentially positive aspects of certain (but not all) forms of political conflict. It accepts a permanent place for such conflict, but seeks to show how we might accept and channel this positively. It is also to affirm the legitimacy of one’s political adversary and their objectives even if one fundamentally disagrees with those objectives. The article argues that an agonistic conceptualisation of democracy and democratic change understood as nonviolent disagreement (as opposed to consensus and agreement) is a more accurate and useful understanding than a conceptualisation of democracy and politics as either agreement or antagonism. In this way one can interpret the flag protests as vacillating between a legitimate democratic agonistic politics of struggle and contestation and an illegitimate, reactionary
antagonistic politics of violence and threat.
Key words loyalism • agonism • Britishness • contestation • non-violent disagreement

In the following, I argue that critical theorists have derived their models of emancipatory praxis, historical progress and social evolution from the alleged telos of human development toward fully mature faculties of language-use and... more

In the following, I argue that critical theorists have derived their models of emancipatory praxis, historical progress and social evolution from the alleged telos of human development toward fully mature faculties of language-use and reason, what I will refer to in the following as ‘voice’. In most variants of critical theory, the ontogenetic conceptualization of the child not as ‘a being’ but as ‘becoming an adult’ serves as the fundamental source of normative grounding. Ontogenetic development over time is not viewed as mere change but as progress. Even where the ontogenetic logic does not appear as an explicit source of normative grounding, or where it is identified as one among many possible sources, its foundational role is evident in the privileging of voice. The veneration of voice presupposes a progressive model of human development. Wherever political agency is defined in terms of ‘voice’ - as dialogue, deliberation, or intersubjectivity - it follows that young children and people with acute communicative and cognitive disabilities are automatically disqualified as full democratic participants.

In this article, I engage with Derrida’s deconstructive reading of theories of performativity in order to analyse Max Weber’s sovereignty/legitimacy paradigm. First, I highlight an essential articulation between legitimacy and sovereign... more

In this article, I engage with Derrida’s deconstructive reading of theories of performativity in order to analyse Max Weber’s sovereignty/legitimacy paradigm. First, I highlight an essential articulation between legitimacy and sovereign ipseity (understood, beyond the sole example of State sovereignty, as the autopositioned power-to-be-oneself). Second, I identify an originary force of alteration, an unconditional deconstructibility of sovereignty, foreign to the order of performative legitimacy. This disjunctive force implies an essential fallibility of the performative. The differential co-implication of legitimacy and sovereignty suggests an irreducible coloniality of law and language, but also points to an unconditional resistance located in the radical interpretability of the law, beyond determined positions of powers, dominations, sovereignties or resistances.
My reflection is triggered by a reading of Cynthia Weber’s theory of ‘performative states’, describing sovereignty under the form of an impossible ontology, which leads me to elaborate the notion of legitimation-to-come as a non-ontological ‘concept’: this unconditional legitimacy, beyond sovereignty, binds beliefs and phantasms to the unpresentable force of the event. Pursuing the efforts of scholars such as Rob Walker and Cynthia Weber, I sketch the implications of this archi-performative force of legitimacy with respect to the methodologies of International Relations and sociology, in view of elucidating the persistent ontological presuppositions of these disciplines.

While the loss of the second book of the Poetics has deprived us of Aristotle's most extensive account of laughter and comedy, his discussion of eutrapelia (wittiness) as a virtue in his ethical works and in the Rhetoric points toward the... more

While the loss of the second book of the Poetics has deprived us of Aristotle's most extensive account of laughter and comedy, his discussion of eutrapelia (wittiness) as a virtue in his ethical works and in the Rhetoric points toward the importance of humor for his ethical and political thought. This article offers a reconstruction of Aristotle's account of wittiness and attempts to explain how the virtue of wittiness would animate the everyday interactions of ordinary citizens. Placing Aristotle's account of wittiness in dialogue with recent work within the ethical turn in contemporary political theory can help articulate what a late-modern ethos of democratic laughter might look like.

While the normative debate on the “ideal” public sphere is ongoing and did not reach any form of agreement since Jürgen Habermas’s thesis publication in 1962, the study of public spheres in actually existing democracies did not lose its... more

While the normative debate on the “ideal” public sphere is ongoing and did not reach any form of agreement since Jürgen Habermas’s thesis publication in 1962, the study of public spheres in actually existing democracies did not lose its relevance. Our thesis therefore joins this field of study by envisioning the public sphere as a conflict-centred source of legitimacy of the state. Guided by Jostein Gripsrud’s (ed.) framework in the study of the history of the Norwegian public sphere (2017a), the following pages dig into Quebec’s francophone political public sphere between 1956 and 1966. This period includes governments from two adversarial parties, and covers the transition between what has been called the “Great Darkness” and the “Quiet Revolution”. To do so, we study in a socio-historic perspective two main elements of the public sphere. That is, the media system and, in line with Terje Rasmussen’s study on Norwegian parliamentarianism (2015), the parliamentarian legislative work. That leads to an analytical description of the public sphere in Quebec between 1956 and 1966. Two important findings emerge from it: the structure of the public sphere is stable, yet the government change comes with a rise to power of a previously oppositional elite.

This paper is a summary of my doctoral thesis (still in progress) which aims to use the politics of recognition to address some of the antagonistic relationships within Northern Ireland. The focus is on working alongside Loyalists to... more

This paper is a summary of my doctoral thesis (still in progress) which aims to use the politics of recognition to address some of the antagonistic relationships within Northern Ireland. The focus is on working alongside Loyalists to co-produce a theory of civic Loyalism, which can then be used in discussion with 'others', namely middle-class Unionists and Irish Republicans.

The core teachings of the Bahá'í Faith are often summarized as the "Oneness of God, the Oneness of Religion, and the Oneness of Humanity." Can such principles resonate with a pluralism based on the recognition of difference? Covenantal... more

The core teachings of the Bahá'í Faith are often summarized as the "Oneness of God, the Oneness of Religion, and the Oneness of Humanity." Can such principles resonate with a pluralism based on the recognition of difference? Covenantal pluralism outlines a set of principles of coexistence based on deep respect for difference that acknowledges the exclusive truth claims of different actors. In this article, we examine how the teachings and practices of the Bahá'í Faith relate to this framework of covenantal pluralism. The "covenantal" vision of human solidarity resonates strongly with the Bahá'í Faith's own conception of "Covenant" as the foundation of its community, internal constitutional order, and ultimate aims, as well as with the Bahá'í understanding and practice of consultative deliberation. However, the test of pluralism is how Bahá'ís engage with those who reject their religion's truth claims and aspirations to oneness. In this regard, the Bahá'í teachings affirm the legitimacy of other religions, as well as the choice not to be religious. Bahá'í social engagement emphasizes collaboration with people of different religious and ideological backgrounds in community building, social action, and public discourse. A foundational principle of such engagement is the freedom not to accept the Bahá'í Faith or its teachings. Overall, the Bahá'í approach to pluralism is rooted in an affirmation of ontological oneness that is the foundation for honoring, respecting, and engaging with the social reality of diversity.

In the context of public concern and negative media portrayals in regard to the civic impact of the public relations specialisms of public affairs and lobbying this paper seeks to expand upon normative theorising in academic PR and public... more

In the context of public concern and negative media portrayals in regard to the civic impact of the public relations specialisms of public affairs and lobbying this paper seeks to expand upon normative theorising in academic PR and public affairs scholarship on practitioner roles in democracies alongside benchmarking the self-perception of sampled practitioners against those of opinion forming elites. The paper also explores how practitioners interpret their roles and locates a consensus in regard to their functional and civic contributions. A potential research agenda for testing the validity of these claims of a positive civic contribution is discussed. The paper analyses the results of quantitative surveys of a representative sample of British members of parliament, and 722 UK opinion formers, plus 260 interviews with opinion-formers in Washington DC. The results were complemented by a Delphi survey of UK public affairs practitioners that sought to identify and test areas of consensus in regard to both organisational and civic functions. The research finds that lobbying is perceived as legitimate by elites but there are concerns over the quality of the information subsidy that is provided. Practitioners share an understanding with the PR literature of their functional roles, and believe they make a social contribution by assisting policy-making, connecting society to politicians and as facilitators of participation and civic dialogue. This research will potentially be less applicable to the relationship between public affairs and society in other regions of the world, or in authoritarian states with low levels of interest group pluralism.

The well-known opioid agonists, oxycodone and oxymorphone, and the opioid antagonists, naloxone and naltrexone, are commonly used clinical agents and research tools in the opioid field. They belong to the class of morphinan-6-ones, and... more

The well-known opioid agonists, oxycodone and oxymorphone, and the opioid antagonists, naloxone and naltrexone, are commonly used clinical agents and research tools in the opioid field. They belong to the class of morphinan-6-ones, and produce their pharmacological effects by interacting with opioid receptors, i.e. mu (MOR), delta (DOR) and kappa (KOR). The search for potent agonists and antagonists has continuously engaged the interest of pharmaceutical research, aiming for the identification of safer therapeutic agents or discovery of opioids with novel therapeutic properties and with lesser unwanted side effects. The chemically highly versatile carbonyl group in position 6 of mophinan-6-ones permits functionalization and modification leading to numerous opioid ligands. We have focused on representative examples of various derivatives and interesting approaches for the development of structurally distinct molecules with substitution at C6 (e.g. 6-methylene, 6-hydroxy, 6-amido, bifunctional ligands), as preclinically and clinically valuable opioids. In this work, the development of 6-amino and 6-guanidino substituted 14-alkoxymorphinans, including the synthesis and pharmacological investigations is presented. The new approach represented by the introduction of amino and guanidino groups into position 6 of the morphinan skeleton of 14-O-methyloxymorphone, led to compounds with high efficacy, MOR affinity and selectivity, which act as potent antinociceptive agents. Altogether, as a consequence of target drug design and synthetic efforts in the field of morphinan-6-ones, we achieve a better understanding of the function of the opioid system, and such efforts may open new avenues for further investigations.

The following review explores Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE) in terms of comparative philosophy, supporting IIE as the most relevant and significant development of the field of Information Ethics (IE). The focus of the review is... more

The following review explores Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE) in terms of comparative philosophy, supporting IIE as the most relevant and significant development of the field of Information Ethics (IE). The focus of the review is threefold. First, it will review the core presumption of the field of IIE, that being the demand for an inter- mission in the pursuit of a founding philosophy for IE in order to first address the philosophical biases of IE by western philosophy. Second, a history of the various philosophical streams of IIE will be outlined, including its literature and pioneering contributors. Lastly, a new synthesis of comparative philosophies in IIE will be offered, looking towards a future evolution of the field. Examining the interchange between contemporary information ethicists regarding the discipline of IIE, the review first outlines the previously established presumptions of the field of IIE that posit the need for an IE as grounded in western sensibilities. The author then addresses the implications of the foregoing presumption from several non-western viewpoints, arguing that IIE does in fact find roots in non-western philosophies as established in the concluding synthesis of western and eastern philosophical traditions.