Politics on the Edges of Liberalism

Download or read book Politics on the Edges of Liberalism written by Benjamin Arditi and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-10 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative exploration of ways of thinking and doing politics that challenge liberal assumptions.'Politics on the edges of liberalism' refers to a grey zone where phenomena such as difference, populism, revolution and agitation turn the distinction between the inside and the outside of liberalism into a matter of dispute.Each chapter takes on one of these ideas, discussing the intellectual background animating the politics of the culture wars and its celebration of particularism over the universalism of classical liberal thought. Populism becomes a spectral recurrence rather than an outside of democracy. Agitation reappaers in emancipatory politics, and the idea of revolution is thought through outside the Jacobin view of insurrection, overthrow and total re-foundation.This is truly interdisciplinary inquiry at the cutting edge of contemporary debates in politics, critical theory, philosophy and sociology. The author draws from an impressive range of thinkers such as Kant, Benjamin, Derrida, Freu