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Thinking Radical Democracy

The Return to Politics in Post-War France

edited by Martin Breaugh, Christopher Holman, Rachel Magnusson, Paul Mazzocchi & Devin Penner

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2015
Category
General, General, General, History & Theory, General, Political, 20th Century
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442622005
    Publish Date
    Feb 2015
    List Price
    $69.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442650046
    Publish Date
    Mar 2015
    List Price
    $81.00

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Where to buy it

Description

Thinking Radical Democracy is an introduction to nine key political thinkers who contributed to the emergence of radical democratic thought in post-war French political theory: Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Pierre Clastres, Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord, Jacques Rancière, Étienne Balibar, and Miguel Abensour.

The essays in this collection connect these writers through their shared contribution to the idea that division and difference in politics can be perceived as productive, creative, and fundamentally democratic. The questions they raise regarding equality and emancipation in a democratic society will be of interest to those studying social and political thought or democratic activist movements like the Occupy movements and Idle No More.

About the authors

Martin Breaugh is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at York University.

Martin Breaugh's profile page

Christopher Holman is an assistant professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs program at Nanyang Technological University.

Christopher Holman's profile page

Rachel Magnusson is the director of the Vancouver office of MASS LBP and teaches at the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria.

Rachel Magnusson's profile page

Paul Mazzocchi is an instructor and doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at York University.

Paul Mazzocchi's profile page

Devin Penner is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies at Trent University.

Devin Penner's profile page

Editorial Reviews

Thinking Radical Democracy is an important intervention in contemporary debates concerning political thought; it demonstrates both the historical roots of radical democratic theory and the respective merits of the work of Abensour, Balibar, and Rancière.’

Symposium: Journal of the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy vol 19:01:2015

‘Thinking Radical Democracy makes an important contribution to our understanding of recent French intellectual history. Its intervention in postulating a left wing of the French ‘return’ of political philosophy breathes new life into this historical interpretation.’

Politics, Religion, and Ideology; March 2016

‘As a series of surveys into discrete theories of radical democracy, this collected volume excels… Breaugh does a quite admirable job in explicating the underlying philosophy that informs radical democratic ideas.’

Contemporary Political Theory March 2017