Conditions of Agonistic Politics 2

Session Submission Type: Full Panel

Session Description

The notion of agonism denotes struggle. For the ancients this indicated a struggle for excellence through competition among citizens. Some contemporary democratic theorists have revived the notion of agonism to thematise the political significance of conflict in a way that is irreducible to non-political determinants or normative criteria (e.g. moral, legal, economic standards etc.). In doing so they have challenged democratic theories that presuppose or elide the political rather than recognizing this as the contested terrain of democratic politics itself. In reasserting the autonomy of the political, however, they sometimes neglect the conditions that give rise to and/or shape the kinds of struggles that theorists of agonist democracy see as so salient to constituting the boundaries of the political. This workshop will examine the conditions of agonistic politics, including, for instance, ontological conditions, social conditions, institutional settings and limit conditions such as violence or abjection.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 2: FOUNDATIONS OF POLITICAL THEORY

Cosponsor

• Related Groups / Political Studies Association

Individual Presentations

• Conditions of Dissensus: Arendt and Ranciere on Slavery and Statelessness - Andrew Schaap, University of Exeter

• Defending Politics in the Midcentury and Today -- Old Formulas, New Stakes? - James D. Ingram, McMaster University

• Civility by Accident: Hall, Dunn, and Democracy’s Demise - Jason Edwards, Birkbeck College, University of London

• Agonism and Cosmopolitanism - Mark Wenman, University of Birmingham

Chair

• Holloway Sparks, Emory University

Discussant

• Moya Lloyd, Loughborough University