Redirecting Radical Democracy

From Antagonism to Alienation

AvSofia Anceau Helander

Häftad, Engelska, 2025

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Beskrivning

Today, alienation manifests itself primarily as precarisation and deprofessionalisation. When the subject's work security or professional autonomy is undermined, relations not only to others, but also to one's self can become inhibited. This book shows that while alienation poses serious problems to modern democracies, it is a form of social suffering that is particularly difficult for democratic theory preoccupied by the political to address. The book highlights that not even radical democracy, which emphasises the importance of social resistance, can include the alienated. The author shows this is not merely due to the historical emergence of radical democracy and its turn away from traditional socialism, but also to a deeper problem in the theory itself. Helander argues that in order to address alienation, radical democracy as both normative theory and political strategy, must be reformulated starting with its deep assumptions about the subject.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-12-31
Mått:156 x 234 x 14 mm
Vikt:372 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:264
Förlag:Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:9781399522175

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Mer om författaren

Sofia Anceau Helander is Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Government at Uppsala University, specialising in political theory and social movement studies. She has previously studied social movements in Sweden and India, publishing in Journal of Developing Societies, and Revista Internacional de Sociología. This is her first monograph.

Recensioner i media

Sofia Helander moves radical democratic theory beyond the implausible assumption of a political subject who is already as flexible, strong and conflict-seeking as neoliberalism demands. By recuperating the concept of alienation, Redirecting Radical Democracy makes agonistic democracy speak more meaningfully to our contemporary social condition of precarity.

Innehållsförteckning

AcknowledgementsIntroductioni. From Antagonism to Alienationii. Alienation todayiii. The problem: addressing alienation in a radical and open wayiv. Radical democracy – the strongest answerv. What is missing? The theoretical gapvi. The status of the argumentv. Significance and contributionOutline: Radical Democracy1. From the Social to the Political – the Emergence and Disappearance of the Concept of Alienationi. The turn from the economic to the social – the emergence of the concept of alienationii. The turn from the social to the political – the disappearance of the concept of alienation2. Antagonism or Alienationi. Open and radical – the aims of radical democracyii. A radical democratic concept of alienation?iii. The agonistiv. ConclusionAlienation1. Alienation of the Knower, the Producer and the Actori. Hegel’s alienation of the knowerii. Marx’s alienation of the produceriii. The alienation of the actoriv. Open and radical?Conclusion1. Towards an Open and Radical Concept of Alienationi.Reconstructing the concept of alienation – resources and challengesii. Appropriation – a conceptual clarificationiii. Impaired appropriation as dominationiv. Impaired appropriation as disorientationConclusion1. Alienation versus Acediai. Defining and distinguishing the concept of alienationii. Radical and open?iii. Alienation versus AcediaConclusion: Against Alienation – Redirecting Radical Democracy1. Reformulating Agonistic Democracy and its Subjecti. Reformulating the subjectii. From antagonism to alienationiii. Is the theory still agonistic?iv. Towards a multi-scalar agonism2. Redirecting the Radical Democratic Strategyi. The struggle with and against alienationii. Who to include?iii. How to organize?iv. What to demand?Conclusioni. Lessons for the Radical Democratic Struggleii. Alienation beyond the Process of PrecarizationBibliography