Abstract

The article discusses the relationship between a government and a protest movement, and takes as its chief example the protest movement of Kiev's Maidan. Analyzing the affective logic of community, which is manifested in a crowd, the author argues that this logic is a necessary component of democracy. The argument implies that what are commonly considered democratic values, such as “freedom” and “justice,” are not values, but the effects of the process of resisting any government, the political manifestation of which was described as far back as Hobbes in his description of the state. Having derived the political from these ethical affects, one can produce a nonpolitical definition of democracy in which “freedom,” “justice,” and “dignity” cease to be tools of political rhetoric, pointing to those community relations that cast doubt on the prevailing understanding of the state and politics.