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Rethinking Political Cosmopolitanism: From Democracy to Democratization

James D. Ingram

in Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism

This chapter aims to formulate a cosmopolitan politics that responds to the impasses of the neo-Kantian cosmopolitanisms. Reflecting Chantal Mouffe's theorization, the chapter explains that the ... More

This chapter aims to formulate a cosmopolitan politics that responds to the impasses of the neo-Kantian cosmopolitanisms. Reflecting Chantal Mouffe's theorization, the chapter explains that the problems with existing models of political cosmopolitanism are rooted within the dominant forms of political theory. For cosmopolitan purposes, the democratic ideal is best considered not in terms of institutional designs or regimes, but as a process of democratization. At its best, politics is an activity—the cooperative practice through which people manage their common affairs. The chapter's first part presents the works of authors who are in favor of such a view: Hannah Arendt, Claude Lefort, Sheldon Wolin, and Miguel Abensour. The latter part discusses Ètienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière's theories concerning the universalistic aspect of radical democracy.Less

Breaking the Consensus: Immigration and la pensée unique

Adrian May

in From Bataille to Badiou: Lignes, the Preservation of Radical French Thought, 1987-2017

This chapter turns towards the political concerns of Lignes during its first series, largely focusing on changing immigration policies and the adoption of economic liberalism as the pensée unique of ... More

This chapter turns towards the political concerns of Lignes during its first series, largely focusing on changing immigration policies and the adoption of economic liberalism as the pensée unique of both the right and the left. It situates the early years of Lignes as dominated by the legacy of World War Two, as a rise in holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and racism is accompanied by a resurgence of the far-right and the Front National. Pierre-André Taguieff provided a useful analysis of heterophilic neo-racism early on, but, as Taguieff drifted towards the New Right and showed sympathy to Alain de Benoist, Étienne Balibar’s class based analysis of structural nationalism becomes favoured by the review instead. Turning its attention to the French left, Lignes is frustrated by the tightening of immigration policy suggested by changes to the nationality code, and also by the government’s support for the Gulf War. As the new social movements erupt in 1995, the review takes a firmer position on the side of the radical left, keen to foment social solidarities between the sans papiers and the unemployed, and to forge a more consistent critique of the economic liberalism now adopted by both the Parti Socialiste and the Rassemblement pour la République.Less

Prolegomenon to Reject Politics: From Voyous to Becoming-Animal

Irving Goh

in The Reject: Community, Politics, and Religion after the Subject

This chapter underscores the fact that the contemporary world has recently witnessed the militant or even violent rise of rejects as a political phenomenon: the 2011 Arab Spring revolution; and the ... More

This chapter underscores the fact that the contemporary world has recently witnessed the militant or even violent rise of rejects as a political phenomenon: the 2011 Arab Spring revolution; and the 99% who protested against unequal wealth distribution. These events suggest a political potentiality of rejects, which Derrida recognizes by turning to the “rogue” or voyou. It is from the voyou, who idly roams the streets and is despised by civil society – hence some form of reject, that one begins thinking how democratic hospitality can accommodate this figure, or to critique the State’s monopoly over violent force that it deploys to neutralize the supposed threat the voyou poses to the State’s sovereignty. To bring democratic thinking further, especially to push it beyond anthropologic and anthropocentric limits, which tend to evacuate all considerations of animals, this chapter also elucidates the political potentiality of Deleuze and Guattari’s “becoming-animal.” With the latter, a more just response to injustice can be in place, where democratic institutions do not exclude animality or animal voices and silences, or require that these animal conditions be translated into rational, human speech before institutions are willing to intervene or address an injustice done to a being.Less

Etienne Balibar: Fictional Spaces

in Spatial Ecologies: Urban Sites, State and World-Space in French Cultural Theory

This chapter discusses the fictional spaces of Etienne Balibar. Balibar argues against a modernist Western universalism, which he replaces with competing universalities that needed ongoing mediation ... More

This chapter discusses the fictional spaces of Etienne Balibar. Balibar argues against a modernist Western universalism, which he replaces with competing universalities that needed ongoing mediation and negotiation. He sees the construction of a new space (nouvel espace) in the age of economic globalisation in which the state is no longer a leading player. Emphasising geopolitics and a quasiexistential way of being in the world, he urges his public to develop ecological territories based on a new universalism.Less

Exploring the Citizenship Debate:: The Sovereign Citizen-Subject

Aoileann Ní Mhurchú

in Ambiguous Citizenship in an Age of Global Migration

Chapter 1 provides a new framework for thinking about current citizenship scholarship. It argues that such scholarship does not present a series of debates for how citizenship can be conceptualised. ... More

Chapter 1 provides a new framework for thinking about current citizenship scholarship. It argues that such scholarship does not present a series of debates for how citizenship can be conceptualised. Rather it can be understood as single debate (referred to subsequently as ‘the Citizenship Debate’) which is defined by a certain ‘reality’ of what it means to be a political subject in terms of sovereignty and autonomy. This chapter discusses how a sovereign conception of political identity implicates a particularly modern way of knowing and being which can be linked to an understanding of independent absolute space and linear progressive time. The work of three key authors (Étienne Balibar, Engin Isin and RBJ Walker) is presented as putting forward an alternative approach to political identity: one which is not based on prioritising sovereign identity as presence but which instead focuses on the equally important idea of non-sovereign identity as process.Less

Liberal Multiculturalism and Rights: Citizens, Humans and Other Subjects

Alexej Ulbricht

in Multicultural Immunisation: Liberalism and Esposito

This chapter looks at the importance of civic and human rights for liberal theories of multiculturalism, looking at Kymlicka’s work to examine how rights operate as a process of immunity in liberal ... More

This chapter looks at the importance of civic and human rights for liberal theories of multiculturalism, looking at Kymlicka’s work to examine how rights operate as a process of immunity in liberal multiculturalism. It draws on the work of Balibar to identify several antinomies and exclusions that are associated with civic and human rights, and shows how these are carried over into liberal multiculturalism. This involves looking at rights both conceptually and in terms of their deployment as part of a regulatory regime. Rights discourse immunises liberalism in two principle ways: it inscribes certain exclusions, even as it aims to include; and it transform languages of resistances into the form of rights claimsLess

Borders are Not What or Where They are Supposed to be: Security, Territory, Law

Nick Vaughan-Williams

in Border Politics: The Limits of Sovereign Power

This chapter seeks to illustrate Étienne Balibar's point that borders are vacillating and not necessarily where they are supposed to be in contemporary political life. To do this, it looks at three ... More

This chapter seeks to illustrate Étienne Balibar's point that borders are vacillating and not necessarily where they are supposed to be in contemporary political life. To do this, it looks at three examples of bordering practices that challenge the modern geopolitical imaginary underpinned by the concept of the border of the state: the emergence and implementation of the United Kingdom's new global border security doctrine; the recent activities of Frontex, the new European Union border management agency, in Africa; and the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at the United States Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These illustrations provide a crucial empirical backdrop that demonstrates the overall importance of developing new ways of identifying and interrogating borders in the light of contemporary practices.Less

The Freedom to Philosophize: The Two Paths to Virtue (chapters 14 and 15)

Dimitris Vardoulakis

in Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism

This chapter presents a more nuanced account of Spinoza’s concept of freedom as distinct from the free will. This adds a social and political dimension to the earlier determination of freedom in ch. ... More

This chapter presents a more nuanced account of Spinoza’s concept of freedom as distinct from the free will. This adds a social and political dimension to the earlier determination of freedom in ch. 1 as the capacity to calculate one’s utility. Vardoulakis demonstrates how Spinoza understands the freedom to philosophize as the capacity to make practical judgments. This suggests that Spinoza’s conception of freedom prefigures the notion of the transindividual as developed by Etienne Balibar. Vardoulakis also pays close attention to Balibar’s argument that Spinoza offers two paths to virtue or the good. According to Spinoza’s Epicureanism, the first path relies on the emotions and adherence to authority, and the second on the calculation of utility based on practical rationality. These two paths substitute the more traditional distinction between faith and reason while also offering a radical political philosophy through the figure of what Spinoza calls the “necessary rebel.”Less

Introduction

Aoileann Ní Mhurchú

in Ambiguous Citizenship in an Age of Global Migration

In this introduction chapter citizenship scholarship is situated in the broader context of the global politics of identity and belonging, and the driving concern behind the book is presented. This ... More

In this introduction chapter citizenship scholarship is situated in the broader context of the global politics of identity and belonging, and the driving concern behind the book is presented. This driving concern is that of how political identity and belonging has come to be dominated by a statist framework the limitations of how citizenship is conceptualised in terms of a binary sovereign statist framework of us/them, inside/outside, included/excluded. This introduction chapter establishes why the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum is an appropriate and fruitful lens through which to explore the limitations of existing citizenship scholarship; reflects upon the importance of intergenerational migrant experiences in discussions about citizenship; considers how the existing citizenship scholarship can be interrogated using the work of R.B.J. Walker, Étienne Balibar and Engin Isin; and finally considers how an alternative understanding of the time and space of citizenship can be deployed through the work of Julia Kristeva. It discusses how this book builds upon the new and emerging dynamic field of critical citizenship studies (CCS).Less

The Struggle of Freedom

Gavin Steingo

in Kwaito's Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa

This chapter introduces kwaito, describing its fundamental musical processes. It lays out the book’s main thesis that kwaito is less a form of escapism than a doubling of sensory reality, and then ... More

This chapter introduces kwaito, describing its fundamental musical processes. It lays out the book’s main thesis that kwaito is less a form of escapism than a doubling of sensory reality, and then situates that argument theoretically within music studies, aesthetics, and political theory. As an introductory text, the chapter also provides relevant history related to South African music and politics and reflects on my approach as a white ethnographer in the intensely racialized environment of post-apartheid South Africa.Less

Introduction Space as a Critical Concept

in Spatial Ecologies: Urban Sites, State and World-Space in French Cultural Theory

This book describes how and where space can be appreciated for its ecological implications. It identifies various types of space and considers how the term replaces or complements time as an ... More

This book describes how and where space can be appreciated for its ecological implications. It identifies various types of space and considers how the term replaces or complements time as an operative critical concept. It also sets the spatial turn in French theory. The chapters in this book present the individual differences among the French theorists while suggesting, an evolution of the concept of space. The French theorists addressed include Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Jean Baudrillard, Marc Augé, Paul Virilio, Bruno Latour and Etienne Balibar. These theorists are selected due to their common focus and the implications of their work for the future.Less