The Politics of Radical Democracy

Edited by Adrian Little and Moya Lloyd

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January, 2009
Cloth, 240 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-7486-3399-9
Edinburgh University Press
$105.00

A number of contemporary theorists and political commentators, including Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Judith Butler, William Connolly, Jacques Rancière, Claude Lefort, Sheldon Wolin, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and Giorgio Agamben, have a particular approach to radical democracy. By examining their techniques, this volume advances a more egalitarian and inclusive theory of radical democracy. Contributors conceptualize democracy as a fugitive condition open to perpetual disruption and reinvention, the intersection of the state and civil society being the site in which the open-ended "promise" of democracy works itself out. Emphasizing questions of political renewal while maintaining a deep suspicion of identity-based political claims, the contributors to this volume see politics as the space in which identity takes place, as well as the mechanism through which that identity is made. For them, democratic politics provoke contestation and disagreement and are not necessarily the ideal method for eradicating violence and conflict. This volume clarifies the concept of radical democracy by critically engaging 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 peoples, same-sex marriage, societies emerging from prolonged social and political strife, and the role of social movements in opposing processes of globalization) and illustrate its practical nature.

Related Subjects

• Political Theory

About the Author

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.

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