The Politics of Radical Democracy

This book addresses the idea of radical democracy and, in particular, its poststructuralist articulation. It analyses the approach to radical democracy taken by a number of contemporary theorists and political commentators, including Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Judith Butler, William Connolly, Jacques Rancière, Claude Lefort, Sheldon Wolin, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri, and Giorgio Agamben. By examining critically the accounts of democracy advanced by these theorists, this volume explores how a more radically conceived theory of democracy might be extended in a more egalitarian and inclusive direction.

The strand of radical democracy examined in this book is defined by a number of characteristics:

* Democracy is conceptualised understood as a fugitive condition, being open to perpetual disruption and reinvention
* The relationship between the state and civil society is regarded as the site where the open-ended 'promise' of democracy is fought out
* There is an emphasis on questions of political renewal
* There is a deep suspicion of identity-based political claims
* Politics is conceived as either the site of or as one of the mechanisms for identity construction
* Democratic politics is understood as a politics of contestation and disagreement
* Democracy is regarded as always at least partially conflictual and not a means through which violence and conflict can be permanently eradicated
* There is a deep suspicion of identity-based political claims
* The political is assumed to be ontologically conflictual, with such conflict being understood as ultimately ineradicable from politics, though the form it takes necessarily varies from time to time and context to context

The book clarifies the concept of radical democracy by mapping the field, and elaborates it further through a critical engagement with the works of its key proponents. In addition, it draws on the insights of radical democratic theory to explore a range of concrete political cases (e.g. the struggles of indigenous people, same-sex marriage, societies emerging from prolonged social and political strife, and the role of social movements in opposing processes of globalization) in order to illustrate its practical nature.

Key Features

* Draws on the work of a range of thinkers including including Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Judith Butler, William Connolly, Jacques Rancière, Claude Lefort, Sheldon Wolin, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri, and Giorgio Agamben
* Uses case studies such as the struggles of indigenous people, same-sex marriage, societies emerging from prolonged social and political strife, and the role of social movements in opposing processes of globalization - this blending of theory with practical political analysis helps locate and explain sophisticated theoretical ideas
* Clear exposition of key arguments in radical democratic theory
* Explains the implications of radical democracy for different levels of political organisation

Adrian Little is associate professor and reader in political theory and head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of The Political Thought of Andre Gortz, Post-Industrial Socialism: Towards a New Politics of Welfare, The Politics of Community: Theory and Practice, Democracy and Northern Ireland: Beyond the Liberal Paradigm?, and Democratic Piety: Complexity, Conflict, and Violence. Moya Lloyd is professor of political theory at Loughborough University. She is the author of Beyond Identity Politics: Feminism, Power, and Politics and Judith Butler: From Norms to Politics, and the coauthor of Political Ideologies: An Introduction and Contemporary Social and Political Theory: An Introduction. She is also the coeditor of The Impact of Michel Foucault on the Social Sciences and Humanities.