Anti-racist debate today remains polarised between ‘class reductionist’ (any attempt to address racial disparities reinforces capitalist class relations) and ‘liberal identity’ (disparities in racial representation can be resolved without questioning class inequality) politics. Both positions share a common perspective – racial oppression and class exploitation are the products of distinctive social dynamics whose relationship is historically contingent. This essay is an initial step toward characterising a structurally necessary relationship between capitalism and racial oppression. The essay draws upon Anwar Shaikh (...) and Howard Botwinick’s elaboration of Marx’s political economy, and Ellen Wood’s analysis of the specificity of capitalist imperialism. (shrink)

Aneivas and Nişancıoğlu’s provocative book,How the West Came to Rule, attempts to provide an alternative account of the origins of capitalism to both ‘Political Marxism’ and ‘World-Systems Theory’. By making uneven and combined development a universal dynamic of human history and by utilising a flawed concept of ‘Eurocentrism’, however, they introduce a high degree of causal pluralism into their analysis. Despite important insights into the specific dynamics of different pre-capitalist forms of social labour, their account of the origins of capitalism (...) inHow the West Came to Rulesuffers from causal indeterminacy and historical inaccuracies. (shrink)

Benhabib argues that since the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, we have entered a phase of global civil society which is governed by cosmopolitan norms of universal justice - norms which are difficult for some to accept as legitimate since they are in conflict with democratic ideals.

A large body of scholarship in political economy suggests economic growth, and foreign direct investment in regulated industries in particular, is more likely to occur when formal institutions allow states to provide credible commitments regarding the security of property rights. In contrast, this article argues that we must instead examine differences in firm organizational structure and embeddedness to explain variation in the resilience of privatization contracts in weak institutional environments. Domestic investors—or, if contracts are granted at the subnational level, domestic (...) investors with diverse local holdings—work most effectively in the developing world. Domestic investors are better able to negotiate mutually beneficial adaptations to their formal contracts with host governments because they can draw on informal contractual supports that derive from cross-sector diversification and embeddedness in the market. This article finds strong support for this argument through an analysis of fourteen water privatization contracts in Argentina. (shrink)

Plantation slavery in the New World, in particular its relationship to the emergence of capitalism in Europe and North America, has long been a subject of debate and discussion among historians and social scientists. While there are literally thousands of monographs studying various aspects of chattel slavery in the US South, the Caribbean and Brazil, only a handful of works attempt to provide a synthetic account of its rise and decline from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Few scholars, on the (...) Left or Right, have made as profound a contribution to such a history as Robin Blackburn. Blackburn’s latest work, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights, does not simply summarise and update his earlier work, but extends his analysis to the rise and decline of ‘second slavery’ in nineteenth-century Cuba, Brazil and the US South. The American Crucible provides a multi-causal explanation of the origins and abolition of New World plantation slavery, examining the complex interactions between the rise of capitalism, political crises in the metropolitan countries, the transformation of popular and elite attitudes toward slavery, and the struggles of the slaves themselves. However, Blackburn’s inability to grapple with the specific structure and dynamics of capitalist and slave social-property relations, and their changing historical relationship, weakens key elements of his analysis. (shrink)

Currently more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. This is expected to rise to more than two-thirds by mid-century. Thus, our economic, social, and environmental challenges mostly and increasingly play out in urban settings. How can cities be strengthened to address the growing challenges they face? This special issue addresses the ethical implications of revitalizing urban environments, and the roles that diversity and inclusion, as well as social innovation, play in this process. The five papers herein show (...) that it is not easy to strengthen our cities, but with the right policies, political and corporate leadership, and depth of community grounding in ethical principles, it is possible. In this editorial essay, we summarize the contributions of each of these papers to this important conversation, clarify the questions that remain, and offer directions for future research. (shrink)

Volume 39 of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values includes lectures initially scheduled during the academic year 2019-2020. Owing to the global coronavirus pandemic, some were delivered at a later date. The Tanner Lectures are published in an annual volume. In addition to permanent lectures at nine universities, the Tanner Lectures on Human Values funds special one-time lectures at selected higher educational institutions in the United States and around the world.

"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring toether feminist philosophy, (...) existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

An exploration of the post-politics of global capitalism in theory and practice Our age is celebrated as the triumph of liberal democracy. Old ideological battles have been decisively resolved in favour of freedom and the market. We are told that we have moved 'beyond left and right'; that we are 'all in this together'. Any remaining differences are to be addressed through expert knowledge, consensual deliberation and participatory governance. Yet the 'end of history' has also been marked by (...) widespread disillusion with mainstream politics and a rise in nationalist and religious fundamentalisms. And now an explosion of popular protests is challenging technocratic regulation and the power of markets in the name of democracy itself. This collection makes sense of this situation by critically engaging with the influential theory of 'the post-political' developed by Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Ranciere, Slavoj Zizek and others. Through a multi-dimensional and fiercely contested assessment of contemporary depoliticisation, The Post-Political and Its Discontents urges us to confront the closure of our political horizons and re-imagine the possibility of emancipatory change. ". (shrink)

Most of the writers who contributed to the issue were locked up at the time in Italian jails.... I was trying to draw the attention of the American Left, which still believed in Eurocommunism, to the fate of Autonomia. The survival of the last politically creative movement in the West was at stake, but no one in the United States seemed to realize that, or be willing to listen. Put together as events in Italy were unfolding, the Autonomia issue--which has (...) no equivalent in Italy, or anywhere for that matter--arrived too late, but it remains an energizing account of a movement that disappeared without bearing a trace, but with a big future still ahead of it.--Sylvère LotringerSemiotext is reissuing in book form its legendary magazine issue Italy: Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, originally published in New York in 1980. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi with the direct participation of the main leaders and theorists of the Autonomist movement, this volume is the only first-hand document and contemporaneous analysis that exists of the most innovative post-'68 radical movement in the West. The movement itself was broken when Autonomia members were falsely accused of being the intellectual masterminds of the Red Brigades; but even after the end of Autonomia, this book remains a crucial testimony of the way this creative, futuristic, neo-anarchistic, postideological, and nonrepresentative political movement of young workers and intellectuals anticipated issues that are now confronting us in the wake of Empire. In the next two years, Semiotext will publish eight books by such Italian "Post-Fordist" intellectuals as Antonio Negri, Christian Marazzi, Paolo Virno, and Bifo, as they update the theories of Autonomia for the new century.Sylvère Lotringer, general editor of Semiotext, lives in New York and Baja California. He is the author of Overexposed: Perverting Perversions, 2007). Christian Marazzi, an Italian economist, lives in Switzerland. He is the author of Capital and Language: From the New Economy to the War Economy and Sock's Place, both forthcoming from Semiotext. (shrink)

This commentary on Gert Goeminne’s paper “Postphenomenology and the politics of sustainable technology” elaborates on the subpolitics of technology as a basis for dealing with sustainability issues. It questions the “sustainable technology” phrasing of the issue and focuses on the political/post-political debate to eventually suggest that the politics of sustainable technology is a possible post-political question. Minor disagreements on some philosophy of science references are briefly expressed.

This article makes the case that Greece has witnessed a transition from a ‘post-democratic’ condition in the ’90 s and the early 21st century to a regime of ‘post-political biopower’ in 2010–12 that can bid democracy farewell. To adequately theorize this modality of power in a way pertinent to contemporary Greece, the paper takes its bearings from Agamben’s take on biopower, the homo sacer and the endless state of exception. But the analysis fills in Agamben’s theoretical skeleton by (...) drawing on Naomi Klein’s account of the ‘Shock Doctrine’, which captures a particular technique of biopower deployed by neoliberal hegemony, Deleuze’s insights about the ‘society of control’ and Lazzarato’s elaborations of these insights with reference to the ‘indebted man’, which can shed light on the political implications of the Greek debt crisis. Yet popular responses, initiatives and electoral politics, as well as the intricacies of dominant power relations, upset any monolithic and quasi-totalitarian account of sovereign rule, disclosing cracks, imbalances and dispersion in its edifice. (shrink)

This article theorizes the connection between political distrust and conspiracy theories through a post-political framework. Following Luc Boltanski’s focus on the critical capacities of ordinary actors, it builds on interviews with participants of the Yellow Vest Movement in France who hold conspiratorial views of Covid-19 and the vaccine. The article explores how the interviewees’ critique mirrors that of post-political theorists. In particular, I use Rancière’s notion of subjectification and politics to theorize how conspiracy theories function as a (...) means of dissent in the interviewees’ understanding of their experiences as well as in their own critique of and disillusionment with politics in France. As such, this article explores how political trust affected reactions to the pandemic, how political trust is interconnected with conspiracy theories and finally how such conspiracy theories can be viewed as biproducts of the post-political order. (shrink)

This article focuses on the interpretative complexities encountered in the work of Lidwien van de Ven. First, it aims to map out the always porous nature of the relationships between aesthetics, politics and religion that make up her palimpsest-like images. Second, it aims to tease out a three-part analytics of photography. Third, it attempts to flesh out a difficult notion of spectacle that is inherent to her wide-ranging practice, and which distinguishes her project from liberal photojournalism with its obeisance (...) to identity politics and its weak notion of ethics. Finally, it aims to isolate, within the dialectical machinery of spectacle that is so often put to work by western democracies, a pragmatic moment in our encounter with her photographs that has real political purchase. With a variable notion of close reading at the crux of the operation, the article probes the efficacy of this moment so akin to philosophical aesthetics. (shrink)

This article contributes to the environmental justice debate by analysing the case of the ILVA steel plant in Taranto, Italy. It accounts for the radical polarisation of the public debate between industrialists and environmentalists. These dominant perspectives are polarised but not politicised. In the reading of the crisis, both fronts adopt similar techno-scientific arguments while failing to problematise the multiple dimensions of environmental injustice and to connect the crisis to broader social relations of production. This article contends, therefore, that the (...) environmental debate in Taranto unfolds in a post-political situation, where technical narratives prevail at the expense of more political positions. In this context, any attempts to politicise the public debate is either absorbed by the dominant views or marginalised. (shrink)

European political theorists have argued that contemporary imaginaries of climate change are symptomatic of a post-political condition. My aim in this essay is to consider what this analysis might mean for a feminist green politics and how those who believe in such a project might respond. Whereas much of the gender-focused scholarship on climate change is concerned with questions of differentiated vulnerabilities and gendered divisions of responsibility and risk, I want to interrogate the strategic, epistemological, and normative implications (...) for ecological feminism of a dominant, neoliberal climate change narrative that arguably has no political subject, casts Nature as a threat to be endured, and that replaces democratic public debate with expert administration and individual behavior change. What hope is there for counter-hegemonic political theories and social movements in times like these? I suggest that rather than give in and get on the crowded climate change bandwagon, an alternative response is to pursue a project of feminist ecological citizenship that blends resistance to hegemonic neoliberal discourses with a specifically feminist commitment to reclaiming democratic debate about social-environmental futures. (shrink)

Special Issue: Chantal Mouffe: agonism and the politics of passion.

This book explores the emergence of void aesthetics in fiction, film, and theory in the postwar period in order to assert the disruptive opportunity this aesthetic offers to the post-political present.

What makes the paper relevant is modern strategies of neoliberal politics, according to which the political life of citizens is replaced by everyday politics of individuals. It has been established that the modern concepts of everyday politics of homo sacer and homo sucker contain the limit of ideas about the political life of citizens. The paper considers an ontological model of the political life of citizens built on the basis of thinking as form-of-life (Agamben). The return to (...) the ontological level of research can be explained by the fact that in modern conditions, the survival of a person depends directly on the person’s ability to think. Thinking as the form-of-life of a community is seen as a force that allows citizens to resist not only the inertia of social existence, but also the life watched carefully by the authorities. The paper presents two interpretations of political life based on the following statements: ‘I think, therefore I resist’ (Badiou) and ‘I resist, therefore I think’ (Arendt). (shrink)

A prevalent political narrative is that we are facing an epistemological crisis, where many citizens no longer care about truth and facts. Yet the view that we are living in a post-truth era relies on some implicit questionable empirical and normative assumptions. The post-truth rhetoric converts epistemic issues into motivational issues, treating people with whom we disagree as if they no longer believe in or care about truth. This narrative is also dubious on epistemic, moral, and political grounds. (...) It is epistemically dubious in being largely insensitive to the problem of complexity in politics; it is morally dubious because “post-truth” is often a derogatory label for individuals or groups that are deemed stupid, irrational, or morally compromised; and it is a politically toxic neologism because it purports to use the language of ‘truth’ as a weapon against power, yet these truth-claims are often themselves attempts to exert power over others by delegitimizing their perspectives. While it may seem as if truth and democracy are on especially bad terms lately, politics and truth have long had a vexed relationship, and moral panics about the value of truthfulness in politics are as old as politics itself. (shrink)

Post-truth politics has been diagnosed as harmful to both knowledge and democracy. I argue that it can also fundamentally undermine epistemic autonomy in a way that is similar to the manipulative technique known as gaslighting. Using examples from contemporary politics, I identify three categories of post-truth rhetoric: the introduction of counternarratives, the discrediting of critics, and the denial of more or less plain facts. These strategies tend to isolate people epistemically, leaving them disoriented and unable to (...) distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources. Like gaslighting, post-truth politics aims to undermine epistemic autonomy by eroding someone’s self-trust, in order to consolidate power. Shifting the focus to the effects on the victim allows for new insights into the specific harms of post-truth politics. Applying the concept of gaslighting to this domain may also help people recognize a pernicious dynamic that was invisible to them before, giving them an important tool to resist it. (shrink)

This article tries to develop a moderate reading of political liberalism applicable to post-Islamist, Muslim-majority societies. Contrary to the strong reading, which considers political liberalism as limited in its scope to those societies that already have a strong liberal tradition, I argue that Rawls’ project does have something to offer to reasonable post-Islamist, Muslim individuals. In part I of the article the idea of a post-Islamist, Muslim-majority society is conceptualized and explained. Part II focuses on the Rawlsian (...) ideas of justification, demonstrating that the conceptions of justification available in political liberalism, i.e. political constructivism, wide reflective equilibrium and a wide view of public reasoning with its ideas of declaration and conjecture, can justify the political conception of justice for reasonable individuals living in any society, including post-Islamist ones. Focusing on Rawls’ notions of stability in part III, I argue that the idea of overlapping consensus should not be considered as the only account of stability offered by political liberalism. Put another way, notwithstanding the strong reading of political liberalism in real western and post-Islamist democracies, liberal stability is always a mixture of overlapping consensus and modus vivendi. (shrink)

This book deals with the concept of post-Islamism from a mainly philosophical perspective, using political liberalism as elaborated by John Rawls as the key interpretive tool. What distinguishes this book from most scholarship in Iranian studies is that it primarily deals with the projects of Iranian intellectuals from a normative perspective as the concept is understood by analytical philosophers. The volume includes analyses of the strengths and weakness of the arguments underlying each thinker's ideas, rather than looking for their (...) historical and sociological origins, genealogy, et cetera Each chapter develops a particular conjectural argument for the possibility of an overlapping consensus between Islam and political liberalism, though the arguments presented draw upon different Islamic, particularly Shia, resources. Thus, while Shabestari and Soroush primarily reason from a modernist theological or kalami perspective, M.H.Tabatabai and Mehdi Haeri Yazdi's arguments are mainly based on traditional Islamic philosophy and Quranic exegesis. While Kadivar, An-Naim and Fanaei are post-Islamist in the exact sense of the term, Malekian goes beyond typical post-Islamism by proposing a theory for spirituality that constrains religion within the boundaries of enlightenment thought. Throughout the book, specific attention is given to Ferrara and March's readings of political liberalism. Although the book's chapters constitute a whole, they can also be read independently if the reader is only curious about particular intellectuals whose political theories are discussed. (shrink)

It is widely asserted that we are now living in a post-truth society. What that means, this book argues, is that the contemporary global world is thoroughly infested not only with trickster figures but an entire and operational trickster logic; or, that we now live in a Trickster Land - an argument advanced by the claim that in modernity liminality has become permanent; or that modern life is patently absurd. The first part of the book presents a series of (...) 'guides' to this condition, in the form of key thinkers and writers who can help us understand and navigate our Trickster Land. Such guides include Hermann Broch, Lewis Hyde, Roberto Calasso, Michel Serres, Sándor Márai, Colin Thubron, and Albert Camus. The second part goes on to discuss five main regions of Trickster Land: art, thought, the economy, politics, and society. This last, central chapter of the book contrasts trickster logic with the basic, foundational logic of social life, presented as gift-giving by Marcel Mauss and as sociability by Georg Simmel, and which is expressed here, combining Heraclitus and Plato with the Gospel of John, by three basic terms of ancient Greek culture, as arkhé charis logos: meaningful social life originally and in its essence is animated by the power of kind benevolence. This volume will appeal to scholars of social theory, anthropology and sociology with interests in political thought and contemporary culture. (shrink)

This book presents a critical assessment of the political and social order in the post-revolutionary decade of the 1990s in both the transitional economies and Western welfare states confronting fiscal crises. As we enter the new post-socialist century, James M. Buchanan argues that we need to think and act on the premise that the future is uncertain. James M. Buchanan examines the political economy of the post-socialist era, analysing the events of 1989-91 and some of their predicted (...) consequences. In addition he reflects upon the influence of those revolutionary years and the reactions to the changes, as well as the role of economists in the new socio-political environment. The political economy of the post-socialist era will be determined by the forces of historical development, social and cultural evolution, directed political change and exogenous shocks. To a large extent, many of these forces cannot be planned for, except directed political change. This insightful new book will be welcomed by political economists, legal and political philosophers, political scientists and public choice economists. (shrink)

Focusing on the interaction of religion and politics, this is a comprehensive chronological survey of the political thought of post-Reformation Britain which examines the work of a wide range of thinkers.

Two expert authors combine a compelling critique of contemporary liberalism with post-liberal alternatives in politics, the economy, culture and international affairs, to provide the fullest account so far of the post-liberal alternative in Western politics.

ABSTRACT:This article examines the presuppositions and theoretical frameworks of the “new-wave” “Post-Westphalian” approach to international business ethics and compares it to the more philosophically oriented moral theory approach that has predominated in the field. I contrast one author’s Post-Westphalian political approach to the human rights responsibilities of transnational corporations (TNCs) with my own “Fair Share” theory of moral responsibility for human rights. I suggest how the debate about the meaning of corporate human rights “complicity” might be informed by (...) the fair share theory. While I point out that Post-Westphalians and moral philosophers may have fundamental disagreements about basic concepts such as legitimacy, justice, and democratic deliberation, I conclude that the Post-Westphalians have made a major contribution to the expansion of the field by presenting business ethicists with an opportunity to inform and guide debates about the potential future course of transnational governance. (shrink)

This essay works at the intersection of two trends, one longstanding and one relatively more recent. First, it takes place against the background of the overwhelming influence that the category of ‘identity’ exercises on both contemporary knowledge production and political practice. Second, it responds to what has been called the ‘decolonial turn’ in theory. We compare the work of Gayatri Spivak, Aijaz Ahmad, and Walter Mignolo in terms of the following question: What kind of reflexive method do they deploy in (...) response to their recognition of the politics of knowledge production, that is, the existence of a relationship between social position and epistemic position? We then develop a novel distinction between post-colonial, anti-colonial, and de-colonial perspectives, one based not on backward-looking intellectual genealogies but on forward-looking political practices. (shrink)

This book asks how a more liberating economics could be constructed and taught. It suggests that if economists today are serious about emancipation and empowerment, they will have to radically change their conception about what it means for a citizen to act rationally in a complex society. Arnsperger emphasises that current economics neglects an important fact: Many of us ask not only 'what's in it for us', within a given socio-economic context; we also care about the context itself. The author (...) argues that if citizens keen on exercising their critical reason actually demanded economic theories that allowed them to do so, economics would have to become a constantly emerging, open-ended knowledge process. He claims that in a truly free economy, there would be no all-out war between 'orthodox' and 'heterodox' approaches, but an intricate and unpredictable 'post-orthodox' pluralism that would emerge from the citizens' own complex interactions. Offering an original and path-breaking combination of insights from Hayek, the theory of complexity, and the Frankfurt School of social criticism, Arnsperger discusses how such a free economy would generate its specific brand of economics, called 'Critical Political Economy'. (shrink)

Post-normal science is presented by its proponents as a new way of doing science that deals with uncertainties, value diversity or antagonism, and high decision stakes and urgency, with the ultimate goal of remedying the pathologies of the global industrial system for which, according to Funtowicz and Ravetz, existing science forms the basis. The authors critically examine whether PNS can fulfill this claim in the light of empirical and theoretical work on politics and policy making. The authors credit (...) PNS as an innovative frontrunner in raising important issues regarding the limited problem-solving capacity of ‘‘normal science’’ and ‘‘professional consultancy.’’ Yet, the authors notice that PNS lacks important considerations about the governance of problems and aspects of participatory and deliberative democracy. PNS in effect implies that methodological ‘‘ratiocination’’ would prevail over political deliberation and democratic interaction and that merely changing scientific input in public policy making would have the power to change its outcomes. This scientistic hubris can be traced back to PNS’s origin in concerned scientists’ activism, which in effect accessed the political arena through the scientific entrance. The authors conclude that the art of politics needs to come back into the discussion on environmental problems if societal change is to occur. (shrink)

This paper on post-truth politics argues that to the extent that one wants to understand political discourses generally (post-truth political discourses in particular), it is crucial to see them as circulating talk that performs rather than reports. This implies a shift in focus. Many react strongly to ‘post-truth’ assertions by appealing to evidence, objectivity, facts and truth. In this paper, it is suggested that, when analysing political discourses, there is no point asking, ‘Is it true?’ One (...) should rather ask, ‘What happens as a result?’ Understanding political discourses as performative demands that the resulting doing, transforming and changing may transcend established parameters and known patterns. That also means problematising the types of argument allowed, or discourse considered appropriate, in a given situation. What, then, is the force within the performative discourse driving transformation? What role does intention play? And who—if anybody—can be designated as the master of the discourse? One way of answering these questions is to broaden the perspective of what happens in verbal exchanges. The hearer-speaker relation is fundamental, one in which meaning is shaped and the performative force is formed. A political discourse in general, and a post-truth political discourse in particular, cannot do and perform—cannot function—in a vacuum. This evokes serious questions about accountability and responsibility and also about human action and freedom. (shrink)