The Post-Political and Its Discontents: Spaces of Depoliticization, Spectres of Radical Politics
Japhy Wilson and Erik Swyngedouw
Abstract
Our age is celebrated as the triumph of liberal democracy. Old ideological battles have been decisively resolved in favour of freedom and the market. We are told that we have moved ‘beyond left and right’; that we are ‘all in this together’. Any remaining differences are to be addressed through expert knowledge, consensual deliberation and participatory governance. Yet the ‘end of history’ has also been marked by widespread disillusion with mainstream politics and a rise in nationalist and religious fundamentalisms. And now an explosion of popular protests is challenging technocratic regulatio ... More
Our age is celebrated as the triumph of liberal democracy. Old ideological battles have been decisively resolved in favour of freedom and the market. We are told that we have moved ‘beyond left and right’; that we are ‘all in this together’. Any remaining differences are to be addressed through expert knowledge, consensual deliberation and participatory governance. Yet the ‘end of history’ has also been marked by widespread disillusion with mainstream politics and a rise in nationalist and religious fundamentalisms. And now an explosion of popular protests is challenging technocratic regulation and the power of markets in the name of democracy itself. This collection seeks to make sense of this complex and paradoxical situation by critically engaging with the influential theory of ‘the post-political’ developed by Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière, Slavoj Žižek and others. Through a multi-dimensional and fiercely contested assessment of contemporary depoliticisation, The Post-Political and Its Discontents urges us to confront the closure of our political horizons and re-imagine the possibility of emancipatory change.
Keywords:
Post-politics,
The post-political,
Post-democracy,
Depoliticisation,
Repoliticisation
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780748682973 |
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2015 |
DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748682973.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Japhy Wilson, editor
University of Manchester
Erik Swyngedouw, editor
University of Manchester
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