THE POLITICAL

Identifies and discusses two “binding” political principles in Balibar’s work: equaliberty, and an explicit and systematic negation of the universalist dimension of equality and liberty. This other principle binds “a politics of purity.” Juxtaposing these two antagonistic forms of politics and explicating their common ground helps articulate an outline for a concept of the political that does not exclude one type of politics in favor of the other but is rather realized equally in both. The two types (and their opposite binding principles) are symmetrical in certain respects that make them equally (and especially well) equipped to demonstrate basic aspects of the political event and of the political as an event.