Los intentos más recientes de repensar las normas democráticas están ejemplificados por dos pensadores franceses contemporáneos. Pierre Rosavallon critica los movimientos de protesta y trata de institucionalizar sus fuerzas. Jacques Rancière, por otra parte, ha definido notoriamente la política democrática de forma que se da sólo en momentos en los que se re-imagina caóticamente el orden existente. Su enfoque se revela de forma que reclama más atención hacia las normas razonables de ese orden de lo que el propio Rancière admite. (...) Tales normas constituyen un modelo de la democracia disidente, y puede inspirarse en los radicales populares de la era de la fundación americana. (shrink)

Sejak 2001 Collége de France, lembaga pendidikan tinggi Prancis paling bergengsi yang berisi para filsuf dan pemikir terkenal dari berbagai bidang, menginisiasi munculnya sebuah fakultas baru. Modern and Contemporary History of the Political adalah nama fakultas baru tersebut. Pierre Rossanvallon, seorang ahli filsafat politik dan penulis buku yang produktif, didaulat sebagai Guru Besar untuk yang pertama kali dan masih menjabat hingga saat ini. Nama fakultas tersebut rupanya sejalan dengan perkembangan termutakhir dalam kajian filsafat politik, yaitu penelaahan kembali asas-asas politik demokratis (...) dalam masyarakat yang heterogen dan plural, bangsa-bangsa yang semakin melintas batas, negara yang tidak lagi digerakkan oleh ideologi-ideologi besar, dunia yang semakin terhubung, serta kecenderungan konflik yang semakin acak menyebar. Perkembangan dalam kajian filsafat politik ini sebenarnya bukan sesuatu yang baru sebab telah dimulai sejak periode 1980-an oleh beberapa tokoh kunci dalam filsafat politik, seperti Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Claude Lefort, dan Leo Strauss. Pada umumnya, para ahli filsafat politik tersebut menghidupkan kembali pemikiran Carl Schmitt, seorang pakar hukum dan ahli politik di Republik Weimar, Jerman mengenai Das Politische (Yang Politis/The Political) sebagai dasar penggerak politik yang selalu konfrontatif, konfliktual, agonistik, dan senantiasa mengelak dari prosedur-prosedur rasional demokratis. Pierre Rosanvallon berada di dalam satu barisan para pemikir kontemporer tersebut, barisan yang kini dikenal dengan nama para pemikir post-foundational. Sebelum menerbitkan buku Democratic Legitimacy, Rosanvallon telah menerbitkan beberapa karya monumental dan telah diterjemahkan ke dalam berbagai bahasa, seperti L’âge de l’autogestion (1976), Le capitalisme utopique (1979), Le nouvel âge des inégalités (1996), dan La contre-democratie (2006). Buku Democratic Legitimacy: Impartiality, Reflexivity, Proximity, merupakan kelanjutan dari karya-karya awalnya sekaligus pendalaman dari buku terakhirnya Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust (2008)...... Sebagai sebuah karya filsafat politik, Democratic Legitimacy memiliki tujuan praktis yang dirumuskan secara jelas. Maka buku ini juga memuat beberapa kemungkinan solusi dan resolusi atas kontradiksi-kontradiksi internal demokrasi seperti misalnya re-institusionalisasi lembaga-lembaga demokrasi. Untuk Indonesia yang sedang bergumul dengan demokrasi, sistem kepartaian, otonomi daerah, serta munculnya persoalan-persoalan seperti fundamentalisme agama, korupsi, inefisiensi birokrasi, dan sebagainya, buku Democratic Legitimacy merupakan buku yang wajib dibaca oleh para ahli filsafat, para politisi, para penasihat penguasa, dan penyelenggara negara serta pengambil kebijakan. Democratic Legitimacy mampu menjelaskan dengan kalem berbagai persoalan yang acapkali dipeributkan dalam politik nasional/lokal kita, sekaligus memberikan kerangka pemahaman yang solid dan jelas mengenai arah demokrasi untuk 50 tahun ke depan. (Ito Prajna-Nugroho, Alumnus Program Sarjana dan Pascasarjana STF Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

In this essay I introduce Pierre Rosanvallon’s recent turn toward relational egalitarianism. Rosanvallon has come to find in relational equality the best remedy for liberal democracy’s crisis and thereby joins a number of egalitarian thinkers who prioritize social and political relations over material distribution in their accounts of equality. Rosanvallon stands out for his historic-genealogical engagement with equality. Unlike other egalitarians, Rosanvallon is also a theorist of democratic legitimacy and governance, which invites a broader contextualization of (...) his egalitarianism. My aim in this essay is to provide such contextualization and to further discuss how elements of earlier works prepared a turn to relational equality bound up with increasingly global political theorizing. Inspired by Tocqueville and Marx, Rosanvallon regards democratic socialism as the normatively preferable regime type for relational equality. As I try to show, his political ambitions for democratic socialism run into a number of problems, mainly due to a schizophrenic relationship to the notion of class and his remarks on the relationship between democracy and capitalism. (shrink)

This paper compares the democratic theories of Pierre Rosanvallon and Axel Honneth. The aim is to show how their work could form the basis of a ‘reconstructivist’ approach in political philosophy that rehabilitates the insights of 19th-century thinkers such as Guizot and Hegel concerning the benefits of combining political philosophy with history and sociology. Whereas the dominant procedural approaches in political philosophy tend to disconnect normative theory from the actual study of society and its history, Rosanvallon and Honneth (...) argue that in order to understand the problems that face our democratic societies today we need a closer connection between theory and practice. Both have therefore developed a method that consists of historically reconstructing developments in modern society in order to identify certain pathologies. The paper compares the different diagnosis that Rosanvallon and Honneth give of the central pathology that faces democracy today, which in Rosanvallon’s reconstruction is related to the problem of representation and in Honneth’s account to the problem of recognition. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo fomentar uma discussão teórica acerca das concepções de Estado e suas possíveis relações com a educação tendo como base os estudos de Hobbes e Rosanvallon. Para isso, apresenta uma breve historicização dos dois autores e discute a partir de uma análise comparativa de suas obras na perspectiva de apresentar oposições e aproximações entre seus conceitos. Conclui que ambos os pensadores, expoentes em suas trajetórias, contribuem com a compreensão acerca da formação e organização do Estado, (...) Hobbes defendendo o Estado protetor e Rosanvallon ressaltando a crise e possibilidades de superação do Estado-providência. (shrink)

Brief introduction to an interview with Pierre Rosanvallon, conducted by Javier Fernández Sebastián, in Madrid, September 28, 2006.

Volume 25, Issue 4, June 2020, Page 488-490.

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 34-47, March 2022.

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 34-47, March 2022.

Only one year after the global wave of protest movements and revolts—starting with the ‘Arab Spring’, then, subsequently, the Indignados movement and Occupy- our appreciation of such movements turned sour. The aim of this contribution is to question the predominantly sceptical and defeatist discourse on these movements. One element central to many defeatist discourses on the 2011 movements, is the way in which a lack of demonstrable ‘outcomes’ or ‘successes’ is retrospectively ascribed to them. Therefore, an alternative approach should be (...) formulated, which would allow us to recognise the significant or valuable aspects of these movements and their practices, without downplaying them as ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘failures’ altogether. Pierre Rosanvallon’s concept of ‘counter-democracy’ and Hardt and Negri’s perspective of a ‘Multitude’ will be evaluated as alternative approaches to current political movements. Although they are meritorious, both perspectives do not go far enough and need further articulation. The notion of ‘prefiguration’, originally derived from contemporary anarchist discourse, could be beneficial to this endeavour. After defining and deepening this concept from an anarchist perspective, it will be applied to one particular context: the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, during the 2011 revolution in Egypt. As will be concluded, in its application this concept of ‘prefiguration’ could teach us more about the recent wave of protest movements in general, and could help us to formulate a different approach to such movements. (shrink)

This article aims to examine the problem of political representation through the work of Lefort, Gauchet and Rosanvallon. It first looks at Lefort, who argues that a democratic society is characterized by a tension between its abstract guiding principles and its concrete reality. Political representation, then, mediates between these principles and society. This theory of representation allows Lefort, Gauchet and Rosanvallon not only to examine critically both past and present discourses of their contemporaries, but also to offer an (...) alternative history of their own. Yet, since the 1980s, increasing individualization has exacerbated the tension between abstract principles and society, thus making political mediation more difficult. This article discusses the diagnosis and remedy to this predicament, as developed by Gauchet and Rosanvallon. While Gauchet offers an interesting diagnosis, but remains sceptical about possible solutions, Rosanvallon is more voluntarist and offers concrete solutions for today’s crisis of political representation. (shrink)

This paper is a review essay of Ottavio Marzocca, Biopolitics for Beginners. Knowledge of Life and Government of People, Milan/Udine: Mimesis International, 2020. Pp. 457. ISBN: 9788869771781 (paperback). It focuses on Marzocca's investigations into biopolitics, a topic of which the author offers an original ecological reconfiguration. The proposed reflections, which address the recent pandemic crisis of COVID-19, are developed from the work of Foucault but are not limited to this thinker. In fact, they offer an articulate examination of the issue (...) by also taking into broad consideration the thought of authors such as Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, Roberto Esposito, Jacques Donzelot, Robert Castel, Pierre Rosanvallon, Nikolas Rose, Melinda Cooper and Gregory Bateson. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate a class of theories that attempt to justify democracy and human rights on the basis of a specific political anthropology. These theories belong to what could be called contemporary French liberalism, as exemplified by Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, and Pierre Rosanvallon. These thinkers share the important intuition that human coexistence is rooted in a fundamental “political” and “historical” condition. Although this condition can be illustrated by meansof empirical examples, I will argue that their argument (...) should be taken to mean that societies are necessarily caught up in this condition. In a second step I will consider the normative consequences of this thesis. The key idea is that ignoring this fundamental condition inevitably leads to pathological consequences, as can be illustrated in reference to both predemocratic societies (e.g. non-Western premodern societies) and postdemocratic societies (e.g. totalitarian regimes). It is only democracies, so they contend, that are able to deal with this condition in a “correct” way, for here this condition is not overlooked or repressed but is openlyrecognized and even institutionally protected. In the final part of my paper I will argue that this line of reasoning offers a promising alternative for the many strands of foundationalism that dominate contemporary political theory, even if it remains beset by a number of weaknesses. (shrink)

Boltanski and Thévenot constructed in their seminal work On Justification the Orders of Worth framework as a research program for further empirical and theoretical development. This article suggests two methodological additions to extend the analytical capacities of the OW framework: The Socialism OW and the analytical adequacy axiom. The polito-philosophical Socialism OW, which acknowledges ' welfare' as its mode of evaluation and the higher principle of 'solidarity' as its test, is rooted in the political philosophy of Rosanvallon. In addition (...) to the systematic justification of the canonical text, this article also offers a tabular presentation for the construction of a new OW in relation to the axioms. In the article, first, the existing OW are put under scrutiny discussing the test category of solidarity, which was added and creates an analytic overload for the Civic OW. Second, analyzing the case of the German binary statutory health system, comprising of a private and a public healthcare, the capacities of the existing OW are discussed to identify a blank spot in the OW framework for empirical analysis. Accordingly, the descriptive analysis of the German binary health system is less about how the system is justified, and much more about understanding how given OW operate within it as coordinative devices. This systematic analysis of a situation of agreements, especially of investments in forms, amends the OW use for empirical analysis of critique and justification in a situation. (shrink)

This paper examines claims made about political representation in recent work on global protest, focusing on two very different authors. Tormey champions the anti-representative claims of various radical movements while Krastev assumes the stance of those political insiders who deplore the failure of protesters to work within established representative institutions. Both turn to examples which seem to best support their positions. Tormey to anarchist inspired movements in Spain and Mexico, his argument being that political representation has been succeed by what (...) he variously calls ‘immediate representation’ and ‘resonance’. Krastev’s focus is Russia, Thailand and Bulgaria. His argument is that protest in these countries can be seen are ‘a collective act of exit’ by middle classes that no longer seek political representation. Using the theorisation of political representation in Rosanvallon’s Counter Democracy, I suggest that the global waves of protest of recent years are nothing inherently novel but can be seen as part of the elaborate and complex process of representation that is argued to have always existed beyond and outside of official elected legislative bodies. In conclusion, I suggest that Macron’s turn to citizen’s assemblies can be seen as informed by just such an understanding of political representation. (shrink)

L’article analyse les raisons historiques et stratégiques qui ont contribué à construire la catégorie de « socialisme utopique » et à réserver le qualificatif d’utopique à un ensemble d’auteurs qui se réclamaient pourtant moins de l’utopie que de la science pour fonder leurs représentations normatives du social, alors que des stratégies rhétoriques similaires ont été localisées dans plusieurs courants de la « science économique ». En mobilisant certains concepts de la sociologie durkheimienne et certaines lectures critiques du libéralisme d’une part, (...) et en suivant le travail de Pierre Rosanvallon d’autre part, il devient possible de construire le concept de « capitalisme utopique » pour questionner la relation entre des approches scientifiques et normatives de la société, renvoyant dos à dos libéralisme et socialisme comme deux programmes de construction de la société. (shrink)

_Democracy Past and Future_ is the first English-language collection of Pierre Rosanvallon's most important essays on the historical origins, contemporary difficulties, and future prospects of democratic life. One of Europe's leading political thinkers, Rosanvallon proposes in these essays new readings of the history, aims, and possibilities of democratic theory and practice, and provides unique theoretical understandings of key moments in democracy's trajectory, from the French Revolution and the struggles for universal suffrage to European unification and the crises of (...) the present. In so doing, he lays out an influential new theory of how to write the history of politics. Rosanvallon's historical and philosophical approach examines the "pathologies" that have curtailed democracy's potential and challenges the antitotalitarian liberalism that has dominated recent political thought. All in all, he adroitly combines historical and theoretical analysis with an insistence on the need for a new form of democracy. Above all, he asks what democracy means when the people rule but are nowhere to be found. Throughout his career, Rosanvallon has resisted simple categorization. Rosanvallon was originally known as a primary theorist of the "second left", which hoped to stake out a non-Marxist progressive alternative to the irresistible appeal of revolutionary politics. In fact, Rosanvallon revived the theory of "civil society" even before its usage by East European dissidents made it globally popular as a non-statist politics of freedom and pluralism. His ideas have been shaped by a variety of influences, ranging from his work with an influential French union to his teachers François Furet and Claude Lefort. Well known throughout Europe as a historian, political theorist, social critic, and public intellectual, Pierre Rosanvallon was recently elected to a professorship at the Collège de France, Paris, a position held at various times by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu. _Democracy Past and Future_ begins with Rosanvallon's groundbreaking and synthetic lecture that he delivered upon joining this institution. Throughout the volume, Rosanvallon illuminates and invigorates contemporary political and democratic thought. (shrink)

_Democracy Past and Future_ is the first English-language collection of Pierre Rosanvallon's most important essays on the historical origins, contemporary difficulties, and future prospects of democratic life. One of Europe's leading political thinkers, Rosanvallon proposes in these essays new readings of the history, aims, and possibilities of democratic theory and practice, and provides unique theoretical understandings of key moments in democracy's trajectory, from the French Revolution and the struggles for universal suffrage to European unification and the crises of (...) the present. In so doing, he lays out an influential new theory of how to write the history of politics. Rosanvallon's historical and philosophical approach examines the "pathologies" that have curtailed democracy's potential and challenges the antitotalitarian liberalism that has dominated recent political thought. All in all, he adroitly combines historical and theoretical analysis with an insistence on the need for a new form of democracy. Above all, he asks what democracy means when the people rule but are nowhere to be found. Throughout his career, Rosanvallon has resisted simple categorization. Rosanvallon was originally known as a primary theorist of the "second left", which hoped to stake out a non-Marxist progressive alternative to the irresistible appeal of revolutionary politics. In fact, Rosanvallon revived the theory of "civil society" even before its usage by East European dissidents made it globally popular as a non-statist politics of freedom and pluralism. His ideas have been shaped by a variety of influences, ranging from his work with an influential French union to his teachers François Furet and Claude Lefort. Well known throughout Europe as a historian, political theorist, social critic, and public intellectual, Pierre Rosanvallon was recently elected to a professorship at the Collège de France, Paris, a position held at various times by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu. _Democracy Past and Future_ begins with Rosanvallon's groundbreaking and synthetic lecture that he delivered upon joining this institution. Throughout the volume, Rosanvallon illuminates and invigorates contemporary political and democratic thought. (shrink)

The article identifies elements of national experience that became the preconditions for such revival, as well as determined the originality of French political philosophy. Based on the publi- cations of V. Descombes, G. Labelle, D. Tanguay, M. Foessel,. Jourdain, the author distin- guishes between French political philosophy in the narrow sense, which is represented by C. Castoriadis, C. Lefort, P. Rosanvallon, M. Gauchet, P. Manent, Ph. Raynaud (paying special atten- tion to the Ukrainian translations of their works), and the (...) articulation of political questions in terms of philosophical theory by well-known representatives of French theory. The reasons that hindered the development of political philosophy in France were the dominance of the positiv- ist paradigm in the social sciences and Marxism in the French intellectual milieu. The impulsion for the revival of political philosophy in France was the crisis of Marxism and preparations for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution of 1789. The distinguishing features of French political philosophy, according to the author, are the study of political problems in the context of intellectual, social, cultural history and ethnology, as well as through the prism of the works of classical French authors. The author also pays attention to the special role of R. Aron in the revival of French political philosophy. (shrink)

Four recent books believe that we have entered the ‘era of populism’. After 30 years of neoliberal hegemony, we would now be living a new historical period in which political life would be more and more confrontational, personalized and emotional. Through a reconstruction of the main arguments of Ilvo Diamanti, Marc Lazar, Chantal Mouffe, Pierre Rosanvallon and Arnaud Zacharie, this article aims to highlight the accomplishments and the limitations of this historical diagnosis. Special attention is given to the fact (...) that, behind an apparent consensus, the theorists of the ‘populist moment’ disagree on several issues: the definition of populism, its relationship with political liberalism and the existence of a populist electorate. (shrink)

This article recovers Claude Lefort’s engagement with the issue of populism, which was inspired by the emergence of Jean-Marie Le Pen as a major figure in French politics during the late 1980s. I show how Lefort developed both an analysis of populism as a pathology of modern politics and a new vision of representative democracy as the alternative to populism. In doing so, Lefort drew upon his more familiar theory of democracy and totalitarianism, his study of the history of French (...) political thought, and his partnership with Pierre Ronsanvallon, who was also developing an analysis of populism in response to Le Pen. Lefort’s approach to populism has outlived the context in which he first expressed it. Over the last decade, a number of prominent political theorists have drawn on Lefortian themes to formulate their own accounts of populism and democracy. In many cases, their arguments are quite similar to those that Lefort was expressing in the late 1980s and 1990s. A particular version of Lefortianism, which was foreshadowed in the writings of Lefort himself, has become one of the defining democratic theories of our political moment. (shrink)