| 1. |
- Helander, Sofia
(författare)
-
From Antagonism to Alienation : Redirecting Radical Democracy
- 2021
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- How can democratic theory address contemporary problems of alienation? Today, alienation manifests itself primarily in processes of precarization and deprofessionalization. When the subject’s work security or professional autonomy is undermined, her relations – not only to others, but also to herself – can become inhibited. This dissertation argues that while alienation poses a serious problem in today’s democracies, it is a form of social suffering that is particularly difficult for democratic theory – preoccupied by the political – to address. In this dissertation, I seek to address alienation in a radical and open way by taking agonistic democracy as my starting point. Indeed, I assume that a suitable theory of alienation should satisfy two general criteria. On the one hand, it should be radical, engaging with the suffering that people experience in a way that encourages them to contest it. On the other hand, it should be open, avoiding the pitfalls of determinism, human essentialism and the ideal of harmony, all of which risk breeding authoritarianism. In this respect, agonistic democracy seems like the best theory to address alienation. The theory is characterized by its emphasis on transformative social struggle as well as its concern with avoiding what it sees as the authoritarian pitfalls of traditional socialism. However, while agonistic democracy, preoccupied with the struggle against social marginalization, should be able to address alienation, it cannot. This, I argue, is not merely due to the historical conditions from which it emerges – marked by a turn away from traditional socialist concepts towards a focus on antagonism – but also due to a deeper tension in the theory itself. In its attempts to remain both radical and open, agonistic democracy comes to rely on a subject who is flexible, strong and conflict-seeking. For this reason, it fails to include those who cannot thrive in social disorder, those who are left alienated. I therefore seek to reformulate the subject of agonistic democracy in order to address alienation in an open and radical way.
|
|
| 2. |
- Agné, Hans, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
-
Tiggarna en ödesfråga för EU
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Göteborgsposten. - : Göteborgsposten. - 1103-9345. ; :23 maj
-
Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
|
|
| 3. |
- Bellamy, Richard, et al.
(författare)
-
The Democratic Production of Politcal Cohesion : Partisanship, Institutional Design and Lifeform
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Contemporary Political Theory. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1470-8914 .- 1476-9336. ; 18:2, s. 282-310
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What binds a democratic society together? This would seem a well-rehearsed topic in modern political theory, but on closer scrutiny, it may appear less so. If we reformulate the question, it may become clearer why: what binds democratic society together? The emphasis on ‘democratic’ is the clue here. Much recent discussion on the cohesive force in democracies has been parasitic on other debates, such as that between cosmopolitans and communitarians on justice as the first virtue of society; that between nation-state-based and post-national views of contemporary politics or that about the cultural aspects of democratic citizenship as the glue that makes democracy work. All such views and debates tend to assume a somewhat ‘externalist’ perspective, so to speak, of the problem of cohesion in democracies. Cosmopolitans and liberal communitarians have argued over the relative importance of values and identity as the basis for the stability of a just society, whose legitimate political arrangements they generally agree must be democratic, so as to reflect the demands of equality and self-government. Disputes over whether the institutions of democracy still require the background conditions provided by the nation-state, with its consolidated networks of party system, solidarity, civil society organisations and public opinion formation, or whether similar conditions can be reproduced at a more trans- and post-national level, are very similar in scope to those between cosmopolitans and liberal communitarians. Both these disputes concern the social, institutional, ideal or identitarian pre-conditions of democracy, which help it to work with a modicum of stability, in so far as they guarantee the political cohesion of either the demos or the regime itself. Discussions over the quality and competence of citizenship look at democratic culture as an important condition for democratic institutions and procedures to function smoothly and effectively. Debates over the ‘civic culture’ in the 1960s and more recently on ‘social capital’ lay emphasis on a mixture of attitudes, practices, participation in associational networks and consolidated norms of sociability as formative components of democratic citizenship, on which the working of democratic institutions and rules depends. This suggests something more internal, or at least a virtuous circle between the culture and the institutions of democracy. But is democracy itself capable of producing political cohesion, and on what basis?
|
|
| 4. |
- Friedner Parrat, Charlotta, 1980-
(författare)
-
Change, Institutions, and International Organisations : Essays on the English School of International Relations
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall topic of this thesis is the English School understanding of international order, which I approach specifically by analysing the English School idea of international institutions and their change. The purpose is to develop the theory in a meta-theoretically conscious and coherent way. The three essays in this volume are independent in relation to each other, yet in some ways cumulative. Essays I and II aim to address primarily the question of how to conceptualise the current international order of multilateralism and international organisations. Essay I uses the empirical issue of UN reform to formulate one English School conceptualisation of international order, building specifically on the School’s central theme of international institutions. Essay II theoretically develops the tools of the English School for capturing how international institutions, according to English School theory the fundaments of international order, might change. Essay III approaches the meta-theoretical question of how change itself is understood in the English School, and how different theoretical readings of what we might mean by change give rise to different approaches to the normative question of what might be improvement in the international order. I argue that an internally coherent understanding of change in international society should emphasise change in institutions, made intelligible by ex-post narratives which contribute to establishing the discursive connection between practices and their normative legitimation, and guided by a sustained normative debate on the nature of improvement. This understanding of change signifies a much-needed addition to the English School toolbox, and brings a promise of a meta-theoretical grounding of the theory. In addition, it opens for similar theoretical inquiries into other IR theories.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Gottardis, Andreas, 1973-
(författare)
-
Reason and Utopia : Reconsidering the Concept of Emancipation in Critical Theory
- 2014
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What does emancipation mean today? In political theory, the idea of emancipation has typically been understood as a process of rationalization involving the promotion of human rights or the historical overcoming of capitalism. However, in contemporary social criticism the earlier antagonism between liberalism and Marxism has largely been replaced by the conflict between Enlightenment thinking and Enlightenment critique. The tension between Enlightenment philosophy and Enlightenment skepticism can be taken as emblematic of the two main tendencies within contemporary critical thought. However, a similar ambivalence can be found in the classical critical theory of the so-called Frankfurt School. Given that we have to distinguish between two types of critical theoretical thought, is it even possible to answer the question about emancipation in an unambiguous way? The overall aim of this study is to examine the meaning of emancipation in contemporary critical thought. More specifically, the principal aim is to demonstrate that Jürgen Habermas’s critical theory can be understood as an attempt to overcome the opposition between the early and the late Frankfurt School in order subsequently to evaluate this attempt and thereby judge whether Habermas’s approach can serve as a key for combining the concepts of emancipation corresponding to these two types of critique. My main objection to Habermas’s reformulation of critical theory is that it is characterized by a lack of emancipatory potential and a lack of critical force. In trying to pave the way for an alternative approach, my strategy for accommodating the tensions between the two models of critical theory is to show that emancipation can be viewed as a process involving three disparate yet interconnected stages: an initial break in the continuity of history; a collective political struggle in order to realize the utopian vision thereby opened up; and, a possible understanding among the participants in a discourse.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Mantena, Karuna, et al.
(författare)
-
Book Symposium
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Democratic Theory. - : Berghahn Books. - 2332-8894 .- 2332-8908. ; 9:2, s. 139-155
-
Forskningsöversikt (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Theorizing the Democratic Crowd: From the Who to the How of Popular AssemblyFrom the Boundaries of the People to their Enactment: A New Terrain for Democratic TheoryPopular Sovereignty, Aesthetics, and EmancipationBeyond the Age of Democratic Revolution
|
|
| 9. |
- Nordblad, Julia, et al.
(författare)
-
Lyft klimatet - starta ett medborgarråd
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Aftonbladet: Debatt. - 1103-9000.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Debattörerna: Vanliga svenskar måste få bli mer delaktigaDEBATT. Den gångna sommaren har präglats av torka, rekordtemperaturer och översvämningar på många håll i världen.Att bromsa klimatförändringarna blir en alltmer akut politisk uppgift, men de beslut som krävs för att minska utsläppen fattas inte. Förra året ökade till och med de svenska utsläppen av växthusgaser med fyra procent .
|
|
| 10. |
- Näsström, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
-
A Democratic Critique of Precarity
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Global Discourse. - : Bristol University Press. - 2326-9995 .- 2043-7897. ; 5:4, s. 556-573
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The term 'precarity' has become increasingly popular as a way to capture the material and psychological vulnerability resulting from neoliberal economic reforms. This article demonstrates that such precarity is incompatible with democracy. More specifically, it makes two arguments. First, and inspired by Montesquieu's analysis of the 'principles', or public commitments behind different forms of government, it argues that modern democracy is a sui generis form of government animated and sustained by a principle of shared responsibility. Second, it shows that this principle is negated by the neoliberal form of governing. The neoliberal policies currently operating in many democratic countries not only push ever more people into precarious conditions where they have to compete against each other for security and status; by displacing onto individuals a responsibility that ought to be shared and divided between citizens, they corrupt the core of democracy itself. The article thus suggests that precarity is problematic not only from the standpoint of social justice, as emphasized in earlier research, but also from the perspective of democracy. Precarity contradicts the ways of life that must be regenerated in order for a democratic form of government to sustain itself over time.
|
|
