Radical Democracy

The central challenge for theorists and practitioners of radical politics today is to develop the tools for collective action on a global scale, but also account for the specificity of diverse local struggles and promote the free transformation of individual and collective subjectivities through political action. This article examines the radical democratic theory of Chantal Mouffe, post-sovereignty cosmopolitanism of David Held and contemporary anarchist theory, in light of participant research in contemporary global resistance movements. As none of these concepts can meet the challenges facing global resistance movements today or the demands of liberty and equality, ‘democratic insurrection’ is intended as both an alternative theoretical category and a practical tool for radical politics. Defined by a forum–affinity–network system, democratic insurrection is based on voluntary associations and the production of the common. By expanding the democratic moments of deliberation, decision and action across time and space, democratic insurrection allows for democratic practice and acts of resistance on a range of scales and organisational forms. Radical politics today demands the theorisation and practice of democracy beyond the state and insurrection beyond armed revolt. Democratic insurrection demonstrates the possibility of such theory and practice, but must still overcome the persistence of dominant power relations that continue to plague global resistance movements from within.

"Re-imagining 21st century education is ambitious, an ambition born of a sadness as I reflect on a book written 30 years ago.  And I shall of course fall far short of the ambition.  Just to reiterate again the question raised in the invitation to this talk.

What sort of educational vision and practice may be fostered to underpin a new world where people matter?

This is an age-old question.  Its origins is in the idea of the good society that has long been the object of philosophical and political debate. So, specifically we can ask, what sort of education does a vision of the good society demand?  And how should schools be organised to lay a foundation for the realisation of this vision?
"

The volume "In Need of a Master: Politics, Theology, and Radical Democracy" discusses how our so-called postmodern age of widespread ideological critique paves the way for reactionary and conservative political movements. At center stage is the question of whether these movements can and must be – contrary to widespread beliefs among liberal elites – interpreted both as a symptom of a political awakening in the horizon of political theology in our era of immanence, as well as perhaps the perilous end of democracy as we know it. The book brings to the fore political theology as the hidden agenda of politics and presents at the same time Christian and Jewish theological traditions as an antidote to a global empire with its often unacknowledged rule of immanence.

This work asks questions on the relationship between innovative collective actors, such as the 'new social movements' and the political institutions of representative democracy starting from an underlying hypothesis: the idea that civil society is the main source of political legitimation of liberal democracy. More precisely, what this monograph reflects on is the capacity of the social movements to concretely test alternative forms of democracy. The aim of the contemporary movements is to augment the fundamental values of the "democratic revolution", namely the principles of freedom and equality. They constantly lead to conflict and social antagonism: indeed new conflicts and new antagonisms arise every time that the movements implement radical experiences of democracy in the multiple and different spheres of social life. Only by accepting and setting value by these alternative democratic practices and experiences - and this is the author of this work's thesis - may democratic ideals be revived in contemporary society.

In this short piece I argue that recent acts of naming the Irish Republic,
either as a “Vulture Republic”, or as a “Republic of Opportunity”, stand as
linguistic attempts to resolve the ongoing housing crisis in Ireland, which
has its roots in the financial crash of 2008. More than that, however, in
such names we find potential avenues for populist action towards a more
egalitarian and just society.

From the mid-1990’s on, contingency developed into one of the leading
key concepts of the social science and achieved an axiomatic status in leftist political and social theory, first and foremost through the central postmarxist thesis of the “Lack of Foundations in the Social”. That the Renaissance of contingency is embedded in the historical parallel rise of decisionistic theories, which helped make the concept popular again, is the historical situation from where the argument in the article starts and which provoked the following research question: are the historical parallel renaissances of contingency and decision based theories coincidental or is their logical relation necessary? The goal of the first chapter is to outline the semantic complexity of contingency and its context-dependent varieties. Two extremes of the concept will be separated from each other. One of those extremes, today’s popular one, will be identified as decisionisms corresponding contingency. The discussion of why decisionistic arguments are a problem within theories with progressive intentions, will conclude the article.

This is a conference paper for an invited talk.  It basically asks whether leadership and democracy are compatible.  It adopts the position that they are not and hence to safeguard the development of democracy one has to constrain the 'insolence of leaders'

This report evolved from contributions to the Society of Existential Analysis conference in London " Being and Doing " November, 2015. I briefly describe opening the conference with a guided Focusing session since this practice is fundamental to my report on the other contribution, a Panel Discussion entitled " Being at the Heart of Activism ". I was honoured to be joined on this panel by Alison Playford, Mark Weaver and Luke Flegg, all involved in social/political activism and developments in participatory democracy. What follows is an account of my own interests in this area as an existential psychologist and Focusing therapist. I present Focusing as a source of democratic process that forms an experiential continuity from 'within' each person 'outwards' to interpersonal and community situations. For this publication I have incorporated some references to Eugene Gendlin's (1987) A philosophical critique of the concept of narcissism: the significance of the awareness movement. Keeping with the ethos of the approach described below, this report is presented in first-person language to make it as direct and accessible as possible. Focusing To open the conference I was invited to offer a brief 10-minute Focusing (Gendlin, 1981) session. Focusing is a phenomenological practice of embodied self-awareness whereby a person can access and follow the unfolding of feelings that step-by-step help to clarify our experience of anything we are living through. At professional conferences we typically interact only from the eye-brain-thinking level of human experience. So I wanted to offer a different starting point, an intention to include all the implicit responses that are simultaneously happening at the body level but that we typically don't " drop down inside " and attend to. At that level we can sense more than is easily said and more than is usually included in thoughtful dialogues between colleagues. This is an excerpt from the last minute of the Focusing experience: " So as we begin our day together, just know that this whole responsive world is down there, available to you. Your body will generate all sorts of responses as you listen to people during the day, pause and notice the feelings that come in here-even the subtle feelings-there is creative thinking in the body. If an idea is making you feel a bit constricted inside, or a presentation brings an expansive feeling in your body, consider dropping down again and checking " what is it about this idea or presentation that makes me feel just like this? " Let the answer come from your body. If you can understand something from the feeling, you will usually feel a bit of release inside. Then consider sharing what came to you at some point during the conference, it might also resonate for others. If you speak, you might let words come from the body as you continue to attend to the feeling, sensing with each word " am I saying this right " ? And correcting yourself as you speak, so that what you say resonates bodily. This may be one way of inviting unformed 1

Les altermondialistes et les indignés ont déployé une culture militante « alteractiviste » dans laquelle la démocratie est une revendication centrale mais aussi - et avant tout - un ensemble de pratiques et une exigence personnelle. Cet article revient sur les éléments clés de cette culture militante et les manières dont elle a été déployée par les jeunes altermondialistes, les indignés et les jeunes écologistes. Tous combinent une grande sensibilité aux défis globaux avec une forte dimension subjective de l’engagement et une volonté de l’ancrer au niveau local. Sensibles aux enjeux globaux (inégalités, migrations, environnement…), ils développent la plupart de leurs initiatives au niveau local, notamment à travers les multiples initiatives « pour une transition écologique », marquant de leur empreinte le renouveau des mouvements écologistes et conviviaux (réseaux alimentaires alternatifs, simplicité volontaire, consommation critique, justice climatique…). Pour ces jeunes, la participation et l’engagement se jouent aussi en ligne, à travers les réseaux sociaux et l’information alternative, et plus encore dans l’articulation de la vie et de l’activisme « en ligne et hors ligne ».

Trad. en italien en 2014 (http://www.edizioniets.com/scheda.asp?n=9788846738288)


Les raisons de se révolter ne manquent pas. Mais en démocratie, s'engager dans un combat contre l'injustice, l'inégalité ou la domination est un geste qui doit s'exprimer sous une forme d'action politique acceptable. Parmi ces formes se trouve la désobéissance civile : elle consiste, pour le citoyen, à refuser, de façon non-violente, collective et publique, de remplir une obligation légale ou réglementaire parce qu'il la juge indigne ou illégitime, et parce qu'il ne s'y reconnaît pas. Cette forme d'action est souvent considérée avec méfiance : pour certains, elle ne serait que la réaction d'une conscience froissée, puisqu'elle n'est pas articulée à un projet de changement politique ; pour d'autres, elle mettrait la démocratie en danger en rendant légitime un type d'action dont l'objet pourrait être d'en finir avec l'État de droit.
Ce livre original, écrit par un sociologue et une philosophe, analyse le sens politique de la désobéissance, en l'articulant à une analyse approfondie des actes de désobéissance civile qui prolifèrent dans la France d'aujourd'hui - à l'école, à l'hôpital, à l'université, dans des entreprises, etc. Il montre comment ces actes s'ancrent avant tout dans un refus de la logique du résultat et de la performance qui s'impose aujourd'hui comme un mode de gouvernement. À la dépossession qui le menace - de son métier, de sa langue, de sa voix -, le citoyen ne peut alors répondre que par la désobéissance, dont le sens politique doit être pensé.

Der Pragmatismus zählt als eines der bedeutsamsten Theorieparadigmen der Philosophie des einundzwanzigsten Jahrhunderts sowie als eine der wirkkräftigsten Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen philosophischen Forschung. Das Proseminar bietet eine Einführung in den Begriff des Pragmatismus an mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Rolle in der Werkentwicklung John Deweys. Das Werk Deweys spannt nicht weniger als sieben Jahrzehnte um und befasst sich mit allen klassischen Teildisziplinen des Philosophierens sowie mit der Pädagogik und der Psychologie; eher als durch eigenständigen Systembau entwickelt es sich durch eine stetige kritische Auseinandersetzung mit vergangenen und zeitgenössischen Denkweisen. Daher darf es auch nicht überraschend sein, dass die Haltung Deweys selbst zum Pragmatismus im stetigen Wandel begriffen war und vielleicht auch unentschieden blieb. Im Seminar wird der Versuch unternommen, die pragmatistische „Mentalität“ (James) als Reaktion auf bestimmte philosophische, wissenschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Probleme zu begreifen.

Wall – a radical in my view in his integration of scholarship and Green political and movement activism in the UK – has written a book for other radicals – here I would humbly include myself in this category give my own academic-activist profile – a 'rule book for radicals' based on the ideas of a less than radical thinker (and non-activist) Elinor Ostrom. But then she, and neither Derek nor myself, have a Noble Prize in economics… and in many respects there is no contradiction in drawing radical implications and strategies from someone who themselves is not so inclined. This is the conundrum Wall covers in this admirably short, well-written and sharply observed book. As he puts it, his task is to " make her work accessible and to show those on the left, especially the ecosocialist left, can make productive use of her diverse and provocative thinking " (13).

The standard opposition between political representation and participation is based on an exclusive conception of representation (excluding those represented). But a concept of representation that is inclusive can be understood, most notably through the history of representation before representative government succeeded in nineteenth-century France. Instead of preventing the direct participation of those represented, inclusive representation stimulates it. Inclusion through representation may first appear through the politicization of citizens, by their judging the action of representatives inside the institutions of representative government, or through the constructing of alternative representative devices outside these institutions. Inclusive representation may also specifically include dominated groups, inside or outside representative government institutions. Finally, inclusive representation may rest on processes of subjectivation, through which excluded social groups become political subjects.

Im Jahr 2011 bricht die tunesische Revolution aus. Bürgerinnen und Bürger besetzen im ganzen Land öffentliche Plätze, fordern politische Freiheits- und Gleichheitsrechte und soziale Gerechtigkeit. In dieser Studie kommen die Akteurinnen und Akteure der Revolution zu Wort. So werden ihre Motive und ihre politischen Vorstellungen sichtbar. Das Buch gibt Aufschluss über die ideellen Wurzeln der Revolution und fragt nach den Entstehungsbedingungen politischer Praxis und Vorstellungskraft in Kontexten von Protesten.

When female intellectuals become celebrities in America, much of their notoriety seems to derive from their sex. The female intellectual is packaged as a personality. Publicists and the public feel no shame in gossiping about such women's lives, condescendingly slighting their intellectual accomplishments. Hannah Arendt became such a celebrity in the United States in the second half of her life. But however fascinating her life story was, it was not at all easy to neglect her work. She was just too formidably serious. Taking her seriously was therefore hard work. To be sure, in part this was because her contributions could not be easily pigeonholed. Her writings created classificatory dilemmas for specialized scholars, if not for the general public. Had she been a philosopher? A historian? A political theorist? Her ideologies were as hard to pin down as was her intellectual discipline. Had she been a conservative? An anarchist? A Zionist? A "self-hating" Jew? A feminist?

Within its first month in power, SYRIZA has increased its domestic popularity even as it confronts deep institutional resistance to its anti-austerity agenda. Drawing on James Scott's conceptualisation of the charismatic relationship, this paper argues that, in voicing the ‘despair and demands’ of the Greek people, SYRIZA has been able to convert populism in opposition into charismatic leadership in power. It is, obviously, too early to
judge the ability of the party and its leader to sustain this appeal in the long run, to create deep and affective bonds with its electorate. And yet its first handful of weeks in power have already provided an indication, which is noteworthy to the extent that it offers the raw material for a miniature case-study in political charisma.

In this paper, I examine the radical approach to politics of President Rodrigo Duterte. I will retrace the roots of this radicalism to the colonial history of the Philippines in which the Spanish regime has established an elitist democratic system that engendered a social divide that has made the people of Mindanao felt betrayed by the capital. The politics of exclusion also gave rise to terrorism in the southern part of the country, the latest incident of which was the crisis in Marawi that has left the city devastated to the ground. Political analysts have been critical of the ‘War on Drugs’. However, Duterte stays popular due to his progressive approach to governance. Previous administrations have been accused as lacking the political will to disturb the elite. Duterte, in contrast, has the character of a leader who is not afraid to institute change in Philippine society.

The article explores the relationship between theory and practise in terms of gender-based equality and justice within both the armed units as well as the political-legal movement linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey and transnationally. An analysis of the historical developments of both political ideology and mobilization reveals the radical shift towards a stated commitment to gender-based equality that has taken place within a wider political transformation from a nationalist independence movement to a movement pursuing radical democracy. The article focuses on the dialectical relationship between the writings of the founder of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, and the struggle of Kurdish female militants and political activists to challenge male hegemony and patriarchal gender norms. We recognize the centrality of Öcalan's writings in the shift away from the emphasis on national liberation to the idea of radical democracy with gender equality at is centre. However, our main argument developed in the article is to recognize the importance of women's resistance and struggle to implement gender-based equality while we also highlight gaps between ideological pronouncements and everyday practises. Throughout the article we refer to Kurdish women fighters' and activists' personal experiences within the movement, which they themselves refer to as discrimination, forms of exclusion or marginalization.

Building «the People»: Ernesto Laclau’s Theoretical Contribution
and the Perspectives of Contemporary Populisms
Populism is a relevant topic in current political debates and analysis. The global
financial and social crisis is fostering a reshaping of representative and liberal democracies.
Particularly in Europe, as a result of this crisis of democratic politics, various
authoritarian, xenophobic, radical and potentially violent movements, parties and
leaders, generally labelled as «populist», are springing up in several countries. Populism
is a complex and protean political phenomenon. Thus, using the label «populist
» just for authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies does not allow us to grasp
all the various expressions of populism in contemporary politics, as well as the ambivalent
relationship between democracy and populism, grounded on the re-definition
of some key concepts for the democratic politics, like «people» and «popular sovereignty
». The authors of the article quest for the development of a non-evaluative
theoretical toolkit, in order to take into account all the different nuances, varieties
and ambivalences of the populist phenomenon emerging in the European political
landscapes. In this effort, Ernesto Laclau’s approach to populism is considered as a
substantial starting point. The article provides a critical assessment of Laclau’s approach,
synthetically describing its main features and arguments, and assessing them
with some of the main critics that, mainly within the post-Marxist field, have been
engaged in a fruitful debate with Laclau. Lately, the article provides a first sample of
the potential of the use of a laclausian approach to populism for the analysis of three
cases of social and political movements that have been emerging in Italy during the
last years, in order to outline a possible research agenda for the future: the «Five Star
Movement»; the movement against the high speed train in Val Susa, in the Piedmont
region; the movement in defence of water resources as «commons».

En el presente artículo (publicado el 17 de octubre de 2017 en la Revista Éufrates) se analizan las principales ideas reflejadas en el Discurso de Pericles, recogido por Tucídides en el Libro II de la Historia de la Guerra del Peloponeso. Su relevancia reside en ser el primer manifiesto de la teoría democrática.

The discourse of the society of equals emerged at the time of the American, French and Haitian revolutions and since then associated with radical democratic movements. Its core  theme of equality as being coextensive with freedom is the fundamental democratic principle by which this article explores the development of a radically inclusive education.

The radical inclusion of the different interests and powers of all is fundamental to social equality. Moreover, both democracy and the associated practices of cooperation depend upon an equality of different voices if they are not to fall into forms of authoritarianism.  Cooperation involves the free association of individuals who aggregate their individual powers to complete projects they could not accomplish alone.  Those mutual dependencies require equality of participation and reward if co-operation is not to become hierarchical line management where the powers and participation of some are more greatly rewarded than those of others.  And if education is employed to privilege the development of the powers and interests of some over others, it becomes reduced to a form of engineering to fit the interests of the powerful.  Thus, I argue that discourses of equality and radical inclusion are co-extensive with democracy, co-operation and education.

The deliberative systems approach is a recent innovation within the tradition of deliberative democratic theory. It signals an important shift in focus from the political legitimacy produced within isolated and formal sites of deliberation (e.g., Parliament or deliberative mini-publics), to the legitimacy produced by a number of diverse interconnected sites. In this respect, the deliberative systems (DS)  approach is better equipped to identify and address defects arising from the systemic influences of power and coercion. In this article, I examine one of the least explored and least understood defects: the exclusion of non-speaking political actors generated by the uniform privileging of speech in all sites within a system. Using the examples of prefigurative protest, Indigenous refusal to deliberate, and the non-deliberative agency of disabled citizens, I argue that the DS approach allows theorists to better understand forms of domination related to the imposition of speech on those who are either unwilling or unable to speak.

Can a democratic society and Sharia law co-exist? This question increases in importance as the number of nations who follow Sharia law while modernizing is increasing. One argument suggests that there is no difference between allowing sharia tribunals to hear family and financial law and allowing Jewish families to have separate mediation. Another argument reflects that Sharia law is discriminatory against women and thus is an affront to development. This paper develops a proposal to study whether or not democracy and Sharia law can co-exist, in order to make public policy recommendations.

Chantal Mouffe has long been regarded as one of the pinnacle authors of radical democratic theory which aims to offer a left, alternative, model of democracy.  In this paper a discussion of one of the most fundamental elements of democracy is discussed: equality.  This paper will argue that for a successful and theoretically sound model of democracy to be proposed, a discussion on the formulation and interpretation of equality is essential.  However, it will also be claimed that this is one element that is severely lacking in the work of Mouffe.  Despite her developments in radical democratic theorising over the past few decades, Mouffe has failed to offer an explicit, radical democratic interpretation of equality.  This theoretical gap, it will be argued, can result in Mouffe’s appeals to equality to be read as a being informed by a liberal interpretation or, more simply, as vague postulating.  In both cases, the radical, left and democratic potential of Mouffe’s theory is severely hindered.  As an alternative, this paper attempts to draw out possible interpretations of this democratic principle implicit in the work of Mouffe and other writers who employ her approach.

Gerechtigkeit sollte die Grundlage allen politischen Handelns sein. Doch was, wenn staatliche Maßnahmen und Gesetze dieser Norm widersprechen? Können dann auch in Demokratien Akte des zivilen Ungehorsams gerechtfertigt sein? Und wenn ja, unter welchen Bedingungen? Dieser Band versammelt erstmals die zentralen Positionen einer Debatte, die von Thoreau über Gandhi und Martin Luther King, über John Rawls, Hannah Arendt und Jürgen Habermas bis zur Occupy-Bewegung führt. Auch kritische Stimmen kommen zu Wort, denen ziviler Ungehorsam mal zu viel, mal zu wenig Widerstand bedeutet.

מה נותר ממחאת האהלים, ומהו חותמה על החברה והפוליטיקה בישראל? מאמר זה עונה לשאלות אלה תוך דיון במחאה שלאחר המחאה. המאמר סוקר את ההסברים למחאת האהלים ב-2011, ומציע לזהות שני שחקנים פוליטיים - הגמונים וכפיפים - הלוקחים חלק במשחק האגוני שערער על הסדר הנאוליברלי. קבוצת הפעולה לא נחמדים-לא נחמדות עומדת במרכזו של הניתוח הבוחן אותה לאור יחסה לזרם המרכזי של המחאה. המאמר מציע לראות בפעולתה ובמיקומה קריאת תגר על דפוסי הפעולה ועל הגבולות המוכרים של השיח הפוליטי בישראל, והזדמנות להרחבת גבולות הדיון באזרחות ובדמוקרטיה אל מעבר לשיח הליברלי, ולאימוץ תיאוריית הדמוקרטיה הרדיקלית כמסגרת מושגית להבנת המציאות הפוליטית העכשווית.