Abstract

In this essay, I argue that Hannah Arendt’s concept of world is the site of democratic reality and possibility in her work. Contrary to the claims of many Arendt scholars that her theory of action is most relevant and useful to democracy, it is instead world that can “do” for democratic theory and politics that which action cannot. Unfettered with the pressures of Arendt’s public/private distinction, world has tremendous theoretical and political potential to change the terms of current debates in the field of democratic theory, and introduce new ways of bringing Arendt’s work into the present political moment.