Pub Date : 2022-06-29DOI: 10.1177/01914537221110899
Adam Burgos
This essay argues for the conceptual connection of legitimacy, resistance and ‘the people’ within liberal theories of public justification by making two primary claims: that legitimacy and resistance are mutually constitutive of one another and that together legitimacy and resistance are constitutive of an aspirational conception of ‘the people’. These claims revolve around the idea that the legitimacy of democratic regimes necessarily entails the questioning of that legitimacy through resistance, which concerns demands that say something about the makeup of ‘the people’. The concern is conceptual, examples of resistance showing how the conceptual connection manifests itself.
{"title":"Legitimacy, resistance and the stakes of politics","authors":"Adam Burgos","doi":"10.1177/01914537221110899","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221110899","url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues for the conceptual connection of legitimacy, resistance and ‘the people’ within liberal theories of public justification by making two primary claims: that legitimacy and resistance are mutually constitutive of one another and that together legitimacy and resistance are constitutive of an aspirational conception of ‘the people’. These claims revolve around the idea that the legitimacy of democratic regimes necessarily entails the questioning of that legitimacy through resistance, which concerns demands that say something about the makeup of ‘the people’. The concern is conceptual, examples of resistance showing how the conceptual connection manifests itself.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132597607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-21DOI: 10.1177/01914537221107406
Eric Cheng
This paper reconsiders liberal nationalism in light of the current autocratic nationalist threat. I argue that liberal nationalism cannot redress the social ailments which acclimatize people to the sorts of no-holds-barred political contestation favoured by autocratic nationalists – excessive polarization. I then argue that liberal nationalists do not recognize the degree to which ‘in-group’ racial solidarity motivates members of the racial/ethnic majority to preserve their status, and that the liberal nationalist approach to defending minorities’ rights therefore risks either emboldening the majority to embrace autocracy or consolidating social hierarchies between the majority and minorities. On these bases, I show that democrats must seek to not only detach race/ethnicity from nationality but also redress those problematic racial/ethnic hierarchies. This suggests the need to develop liberal nationalism into multiculturalist nationalism. Multiculturalist nationalism, however, promises a sort of bounded solidarity that does not include all citizens: it makes use of targeted political antagonism against anti-democrats like White supremacists and Identitarians to help diffuse any social antagonism that might exist among minorities, inclusive members of the majority, and cultural conservatives.
{"title":"From liberal to multiculturalist nationalism: Confronting autocratic nationalism","authors":"Eric Cheng","doi":"10.1177/01914537221107406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221107406","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reconsiders liberal nationalism in light of the current autocratic nationalist threat. I argue that liberal nationalism cannot redress the social ailments which acclimatize people to the sorts of no-holds-barred political contestation favoured by autocratic nationalists – excessive polarization. I then argue that liberal nationalists do not recognize the degree to which ‘in-group’ racial solidarity motivates members of the racial/ethnic majority to preserve their status, and that the liberal nationalist approach to defending minorities’ rights therefore risks either emboldening the majority to embrace autocracy or consolidating social hierarchies between the majority and minorities. On these bases, I show that democrats must seek to not only detach race/ethnicity from nationality but also redress those problematic racial/ethnic hierarchies. This suggests the need to develop liberal nationalism into multiculturalist nationalism. Multiculturalist nationalism, however, promises a sort of bounded solidarity that does not include all citizens: it makes use of targeted political antagonism against anti-democrats like White supremacists and Identitarians to help diffuse any social antagonism that might exist among minorities, inclusive members of the majority, and cultural conservatives.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"99 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132124990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-17DOI: 10.1177/01914537221107403
J. Muldoon, D. Booth
Contemporary democratic theorists have tended to assume that democracy is compatible with and even requires a capitalist economic system. Rosa Luxemburg offers a democratic criticism of this view, arguing that the dominating effects of a capitalist economy undermine the ability of liberal democracy to actualise its ideals of freedom and equality. Drawing on Luxemburg’s writings, this article theorises a model of socialist democracy which combines support for public ownership and control of the means of production with a plural multi-party electoral system and a defence of civil liberties. It recovers Luxemburg’s conceptualisation of a socialist democracy as the extension of democratic principles to major social and economic institutions currently governed by nondemocratic authority structures. It defends this version of socialist democracy from the liberal objection that it violates citizens’ property rights and the Marxist objection that it retains the dominating structures of the state and a coercive legal system.
{"title":"Socialist democracy: Rosa Luxemburg’s challenge to democratic theory","authors":"J. Muldoon, D. Booth","doi":"10.1177/01914537221107403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221107403","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary democratic theorists have tended to assume that democracy is compatible with and even requires a capitalist economic system. Rosa Luxemburg offers a democratic criticism of this view, arguing that the dominating effects of a capitalist economy undermine the ability of liberal democracy to actualise its ideals of freedom and equality. Drawing on Luxemburg’s writings, this article theorises a model of socialist democracy which combines support for public ownership and control of the means of production with a plural multi-party electoral system and a defence of civil liberties. It recovers Luxemburg’s conceptualisation of a socialist democracy as the extension of democratic principles to major social and economic institutions currently governed by nondemocratic authority structures. It defends this version of socialist democracy from the liberal objection that it violates citizens’ property rights and the Marxist objection that it retains the dominating structures of the state and a coercive legal system.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121592105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-16DOI: 10.1177/01914537221108467
Jovy Chan
Coordinated inauthentic behaviours online are becoming a more serious problem throughout the world. One common type of manipulative behaviour is astroturfing. It happens when an entity artificially creates an impression of widespread support for a product, policy, or concept, when in reality only limited support exists. Online astroturfing is often considered to be just like any other coordinated inauthentic behaviour; with considerable discussion focusing on how it aggravates the spread of fake news and disinformation. This paper shows that astroturfing creates additional problems for social media platforms and the online environment in general. The practice of astroturfing exploits our natural tendency to conform to what the crowd does; and because of the importance of conformity in our decision-making process, the negative consequences brought about by astroturfing can be much more far-reaching and alarming than just the spread of disinformation.
{"title":"Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation","authors":"Jovy Chan","doi":"10.1177/01914537221108467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221108467","url":null,"abstract":"Coordinated inauthentic behaviours online are becoming a more serious problem throughout the world. One common type of manipulative behaviour is astroturfing. It happens when an entity artificially creates an impression of widespread support for a product, policy, or concept, when in reality only limited support exists. Online astroturfing is often considered to be just like any other coordinated inauthentic behaviour; with considerable discussion focusing on how it aggravates the spread of fake news and disinformation. This paper shows that astroturfing creates additional problems for social media platforms and the online environment in general. The practice of astroturfing exploits our natural tendency to conform to what the crowd does; and because of the importance of conformity in our decision-making process, the negative consequences brought about by astroturfing can be much more far-reaching and alarming than just the spread of disinformation.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126967797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-12DOI: 10.1177/01914537221107405
E. Daly
In this paper, I consider what it might mean to approach boredom as a problem of post-history, rather than of modernity as such. Post-history, or ‘end of history’, in this sense, is linked with the impossibility or unlikelihood of political-systemic change, and thus with the disappearance of the contingency or temporal flux that had been understood as the context or prerequisite of political action and political freedom. I will, argue, firstly, that both Rousseau and Fukuyama depict societies that are ‘post-historical’, in this sense, and which are marked by ‘boredom’ of this specifically post-historical kind. Secondly, I will argue that both thinkers link post-historical boredom with the disappearance or diminution of the ‘drive for recognition’ that both understood as both an agent and effect of ‘history’. Thirdly, I will argue that while Fukuyama understands post-historical boredom as an ‘irritant’ that threatens to restart history without quite succeeding in doing so, Rousseau understands it as an essentially stabilising (and happy) condition that maintains post-historical man in an equilibrium modelled on the order of nature itself. And fourthly, I consider certain ways in which this ‘post-historical’ boredom might coexist and overlap with the ‘promise of intensity’ experienced in post-Fordist neoliberal society.
{"title":"Boredom at the end of history: ‘empty temporalities’ in Rousseau’s Corsica and Fukuyama’s liberal democracy","authors":"E. Daly","doi":"10.1177/01914537221107405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221107405","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I consider what it might mean to approach boredom as a problem of post-history, rather than of modernity as such. Post-history, or ‘end of history’, in this sense, is linked with the impossibility or unlikelihood of political-systemic change, and thus with the disappearance of the contingency or temporal flux that had been understood as the context or prerequisite of political action and political freedom. I will, argue, firstly, that both Rousseau and Fukuyama depict societies that are ‘post-historical’, in this sense, and which are marked by ‘boredom’ of this specifically post-historical kind. Secondly, I will argue that both thinkers link post-historical boredom with the disappearance or diminution of the ‘drive for recognition’ that both understood as both an agent and effect of ‘history’. Thirdly, I will argue that while Fukuyama understands post-historical boredom as an ‘irritant’ that threatens to restart history without quite succeeding in doing so, Rousseau understands it as an essentially stabilising (and happy) condition that maintains post-historical man in an equilibrium modelled on the order of nature itself. And fourthly, I consider certain ways in which this ‘post-historical’ boredom might coexist and overlap with the ‘promise of intensity’ experienced in post-Fordist neoliberal society.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"80 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122612648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-06DOI: 10.1177/01914537221103897
Nicole Yokum
Frantz Fanon’s analysis of white negrophobic women’s masochistic sexuality and sexual fantasies in Black Skin, White Masks, is, as T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting notes, among his most contentious work for feminists. Susan Brownmiller, in her 1975 classic Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, charges Fanon not only with hating women but also with being personally confused and anguished, on account of this portion of the text. In this essay, I examine Fanon’s approach to theorizing white female negrophobia in light of his sociogenic project and the Freudian psychoanalytic tradition with which he was working; I also take a close look at his potentially most problematic remarks, from a feminist angle. I argue against Brownmiller's interpretation of Fanon as condoning rape or expressing personal attitudes through these lines, maintaining instead that he is ultimately calling for psycho-affective change.
弗朗茨·法农(franz Fanon)在《黑皮肤,白面具》(Black Skin, white Masks)中对白人黑人恐惧症女性的受虐性行为和性幻想的分析,正如t·迪尼安·夏普利-怀廷(T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting)所指出的,是他对女权主义者最有争议的作品之一。苏珊·布朗米勒(Susan Brownmiller)在1975年出版的经典著作《违背我们的意愿:男人、女人和强奸》(Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape)中,指责法农不仅憎恨女性,而且因为这部分文字,他个人感到困惑和痛苦。在这篇文章中,我根据法农的社会成因计划和他所研究的弗洛伊德精神分析传统,研究了他将白人女性黑人恐惧症理论化的方法;我还从女权主义的角度仔细研究了他可能最有问题的言论。我反对布朗米勒将法农解释为宽恕强奸或通过这些文字表达个人态度,相反,我坚持认为他最终是在呼吁心理情感的改变。
{"title":"A call for psycho-affective change: Fanon, feminism, and white negrophobic femininity","authors":"Nicole Yokum","doi":"10.1177/01914537221103897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221103897","url":null,"abstract":"Frantz Fanon’s analysis of white negrophobic women’s masochistic sexuality and sexual fantasies in Black Skin, White Masks, is, as T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting notes, among his most contentious work for feminists. Susan Brownmiller, in her 1975 classic Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, charges Fanon not only with hating women but also with being personally confused and anguished, on account of this portion of the text. In this essay, I examine Fanon’s approach to theorizing white female negrophobia in light of his sociogenic project and the Freudian psychoanalytic tradition with which he was working; I also take a close look at his potentially most problematic remarks, from a feminist angle. I argue against Brownmiller's interpretation of Fanon as condoning rape or expressing personal attitudes through these lines, maintaining instead that he is ultimately calling for psycho-affective change.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123834748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-21DOI: 10.1177/01914537221101322
Annabel Herzog
This paper focuses on Lefort’s and Rancière’s conceptions of democracy as a set of conflictual processes through which the composition of the public sphere is reassessed. Reading their works together and sometimes in opposition to each other, the paper extracts elements of a theory of inessential sovereignty that avoids the pitfalls of populist antagonism and of neoliberal diffuse domination. It analyses Lefort’s and Rancière’s understandings of democracy as rule of the people, which are based on ontological and aesthetical distinctions between ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. It argues that in the structural situation of dissensus described by both Lefort and Rancière, popular sovereignty could be conceptualized as lying in an ability to shape and transform the public sphere.
{"title":"Lefort and Rancière on democracy and sovereignty","authors":"Annabel Herzog","doi":"10.1177/01914537221101322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221101322","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on Lefort’s and Rancière’s conceptions of democracy as a set of conflictual processes through which the composition of the public sphere is reassessed. Reading their works together and sometimes in opposition to each other, the paper extracts elements of a theory of inessential sovereignty that avoids the pitfalls of populist antagonism and of neoliberal diffuse domination. It analyses Lefort’s and Rancière’s understandings of democracy as rule of the people, which are based on ontological and aesthetical distinctions between ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. It argues that in the structural situation of dissensus described by both Lefort and Rancière, popular sovereignty could be conceptualized as lying in an ability to shape and transform the public sphere.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125295916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-19DOI: 10.1177/01914537221101316
A. Ioris
The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that can be inserted in market-based relations, whilst the majority of differences are ignored and disregarded. The instrumentalisation of difference under capitalism – the reduction of extended socio-spatial difference to the interests and priorities of the stronger segments of society who emphasise their distinctive features in the attempt to exert power and control over those considered inferior and subordinate – has more than just an impact on social or interpersonal relations but constitutes an active worldmaking force that operates, primarily, via the promotion of indifference. The analysis is informed by the Hegelian framework of consciousness and reason that is based on what the German philosopher calls the laws of experience accumulated through social interaction. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can, therefore, move social theory forward to a critical interrogation of lived and contested differences. The instrumentalised metabolism of difference, following Hegelian metaphysics, is basically the result of self-estrangement and externalisation of the self, not because of self-serving interests but exactly because of its incompleteness and the need to be actualised in the other, who is also incomplete. Likewise, all particulars are moments actualised in the universal, which is also a changeable moment of itself. Thought the negation of otherness, followed by a negation of the negation, difference can be then embraced in its entirety, as it remains a central explanatory concept for social criticism.
{"title":"World out of difference: Relations and consequences","authors":"A. Ioris","doi":"10.1177/01914537221101316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221101316","url":null,"abstract":"The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that can be inserted in market-based relations, whilst the majority of differences are ignored and disregarded. The instrumentalisation of difference under capitalism – the reduction of extended socio-spatial difference to the interests and priorities of the stronger segments of society who emphasise their distinctive features in the attempt to exert power and control over those considered inferior and subordinate – has more than just an impact on social or interpersonal relations but constitutes an active worldmaking force that operates, primarily, via the promotion of indifference. The analysis is informed by the Hegelian framework of consciousness and reason that is based on what the German philosopher calls the laws of experience accumulated through social interaction. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can, therefore, move social theory forward to a critical interrogation of lived and contested differences. The instrumentalised metabolism of difference, following Hegelian metaphysics, is basically the result of self-estrangement and externalisation of the self, not because of self-serving interests but exactly because of its incompleteness and the need to be actualised in the other, who is also incomplete. Likewise, all particulars are moments actualised in the universal, which is also a changeable moment of itself. Thought the negation of otherness, followed by a negation of the negation, difference can be then embraced in its entirety, as it remains a central explanatory concept for social criticism.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"252 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117296587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-18DOI: 10.1177/01914537221101318
Hossein Dabbagh
Abdolkarim Soroush’s theory of ‘The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge’ is arguably one of the most controversial theories of religion in post-revolutionary Iran. Soroush’s theory paves the way for recognising a pluralist interpretation of religion (Islam) by merging the epistemological and hermeneutical theory of religion. However, he later adds another approach to his reformist framework to explain the phenomenon of revelation. In this paper, after carefully laying out Soroush’s contraction and expansion theory, I will discuss his three approaches, that is, epistemological, hermeneutical and phenomenological approaches to religion, through presenting Kantian and Quinian interpretations of contraction and expansion of religious knowledge, addressing the epistemology of contraction and expansion and the phenomenology of revelation, and pointing out some issues about error recognition within contraction and expansion of religious knowledge. I argue that the role of error recognition is crucial in understanding Soroush’s reformist project since it links his epistemology and hermeneutics of religious knowledge to the way he theorises about revelation phenomenologically.
{"title":"Epistemology of Religion and phenomenology of revelation in post-revolutionary Iran: The case of Abdolkarim Soroush","authors":"Hossein Dabbagh","doi":"10.1177/01914537221101318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221101318","url":null,"abstract":"Abdolkarim Soroush’s theory of ‘The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge’ is arguably one of the most controversial theories of religion in post-revolutionary Iran. Soroush’s theory paves the way for recognising a pluralist interpretation of religion (Islam) by merging the epistemological and hermeneutical theory of religion. However, he later adds another approach to his reformist framework to explain the phenomenon of revelation. In this paper, after carefully laying out Soroush’s contraction and expansion theory, I will discuss his three approaches, that is, epistemological, hermeneutical and phenomenological approaches to religion, through presenting Kantian and Quinian interpretations of contraction and expansion of religious knowledge, addressing the epistemology of contraction and expansion and the phenomenology of revelation, and pointing out some issues about error recognition within contraction and expansion of religious knowledge. I argue that the role of error recognition is crucial in understanding Soroush’s reformist project since it links his epistemology and hermeneutics of religious knowledge to the way he theorises about revelation phenomenologically.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127860485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-10DOI: 10.1177/01914537221084003
Kolja Möller
This article outlines a critical systems theory approach to the study of populism by arguing that populism is an avenue of contestation which assumes a distinct role and function in the existing constitution of the political system. Most notably, it is characterised by the re-entry of a popular sovereignty dimension within regular political procedures. By taking up a critical systems theory perspective, it becomes possible to more precisely distinguish populism from other forms of politics, such as oppositional politics, social movement politics or procedural constitutional politics. Further, populism’s oscillation between democratic and authoritarian dynamics can be elucidated as an inversion which operates from within its political form. Finally, it is argued that the critical systems theory approach provides a more nuanced understanding of populism’s inherent problems and, consequently, moves beyond a blunt defence or rejection of populism as such.
{"title":"Populism and the political system: A critical systems theory approach to the study of populism","authors":"Kolja Möller","doi":"10.1177/01914537221084003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221084003","url":null,"abstract":"This article outlines a critical systems theory approach to the study of populism by arguing that populism is an avenue of contestation which assumes a distinct role and function in the existing constitution of the political system. Most notably, it is characterised by the re-entry of a popular sovereignty dimension within regular political procedures. By taking up a critical systems theory perspective, it becomes possible to more precisely distinguish populism from other forms of politics, such as oppositional politics, social movement politics or procedural constitutional politics. Further, populism’s oscillation between democratic and authoritarian dynamics can be elucidated as an inversion which operates from within its political form. Finally, it is argued that the critical systems theory approach provides a more nuanced understanding of populism’s inherent problems and, consequently, moves beyond a blunt defence or rejection of populism as such.","PeriodicalId":339635,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130195795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}