Tom Bailey – författare

This book provides a rich and systematic engagement with Jürgen Habermas’ political theory from critical perspectives outside its Western locus. It constructively examines the theory’s implications for non-‘Western’ contexts ranging from Latin America and the Middle East to India and China, and for themes ranging from cosmopolitanism, democracy and human rights to colonialism, feminism, care, modernity, and religion. The chapters added to the second edition explore Habermas’ own recent response to the charge of ‘provincialism’.

The book will be of special interest to scholars and students of political theory, global justice, international affairs, philosophy, and critical theory, and also to those working in postcolonial studies, religious studies, sociology and cultural studies.

This book provides a rich and systematic engagement with Jürgen Habermas’ political theory from critical perspectives outside its Western locus. It constructively examines the theory’s implications for non-‘Western’ contexts ranging from Latin America and the Middle East to India and China, and for themes ranging from cosmopolitanism, democracy and human rights to colonialism, feminism, care, modernity, and religion. The chapters added to the second edition explore Habermas’ own recent response to the charge of ‘provincialism’.

The book will be of special interest to scholars and students of political theory, global justice, international affairs, philosophy, and critical theory, and also to those working in postcolonial studies, religious studies, sociology and cultural studies.

Contemporary global politics poses urgent challenges – from humanitarian, migratory and environmental problems to economic, religious and military conflicts – that strain not only existing political systems and resources, but also the frameworks and concepts of political thinking. The standard cosmopolitan response is to invoke a sense of global community, governed by such principles as human rights or humanitarianism, free or fair trade, global equality, multiculturalism, or extra-national democracy. Yet, the contours, grounds and implications of such a global community remain notoriously controversial, and it risks abstracting precisely from the particular and conflictual character of the challenges which global politics poses.

The contributions to this collection undertake to develop a more fruitful cosmopolitan response to global political challenges, one that roots cosmopolitanism in the particularity and conflict of global politics itself. They argue that this ‘contestatory’ cosmopolitanism must be dialectical, agonistic and democratic: that is, its concepts and principles must be developed immanently and critically out of prevailing normative resources; they must reflect and acknowledge their antagonistic roots; and they must be the result of participatory and self-determining publics. In elaborating this alternative, the contributions also return to neglected cosmopolitan theorists like Hegel, Adorno, Arendt, Camus, Derrida, and Mouffe, and reconsider mainstream figures such as Kant and Habermas.

This collection was originally published as a special edition of Critical Horizons.

Contemporary global politics poses urgent challenges – from humanitarian, migratory and environmental problems to economic, religious and military conflicts – that strain not only existing political systems and resources, but also the frameworks and concepts of political thinking. The standard cosmopolitan response is to invoke a sense of global community, governed by such principles as human rights or humanitarianism, free or fair trade, global equality, multiculturalism, or extra-national democracy. Yet, the contours, grounds and implications of such a global community remain notoriously controversial, and it risks abstracting precisely from the particular and conflictual character of the challenges which global politics poses.

The contributions to this collection undertake to develop a more fruitful cosmopolitan response to global political challenges, one that roots cosmopolitanism in the particularity and conflict of global politics itself. They argue that this ‘contestatory’ cosmopolitanism must be dialectical, agonistic and democratic: that is, its concepts and principles must be developed immanently and critically out of prevailing normative resources; they must reflect and acknowledge their antagonistic roots; and they must be the result of participatory and self-determining publics. In elaborating this alternative, the contributions also return to neglected cosmopolitan theorists like Hegel, Adorno, Arendt, Camus, Derrida, and Mouffe, and reconsider mainstream figures such as Kant and Habermas.

This collection was originally published as a special edition of Critical Horizons.