This book presents, for the first time in the English language, Marcel Gauchet’s interpretation of the challenges faced by contemporary Western societies as a result of the crisis of liberal democratic politics and the growing influence of populism.
Responding to Gauchet’s analysis, international experts explore the depoliticising aspects of contemporary democratic culture that explain the appeal of populism: neo-liberal individualism, the cult of the individual and its related human rights, and the juridification of all human relationships. The book also provides the intellectual context within which Gauchet’s understanding of modern society has developed―in particular, his critical engagement with Marxism and the profound influence of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort on his work. It highlights the way Gauchet’s work remains faithful to an understanding of history that stresses the role of humanity as a collective subject, while also seeking to account for both the historical novelty of contemporary individualism and the new form of alienation that radical modernity engenders. In doing so, the book also opens up new avenues for reflection on the political significance of the contemporary health crisis.
Marcel Gauchet and the Crisis of Democratic Politics will be of great interest to scholars and postgraduate students of social and political thought, political anthropology and sociology, political philosophy, and political theory.
Author(s): Natalie J. Doyle, Sean McMorrow
Series: Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 266
City: London
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Preface: Why Read Marcel Gauchet?
Notes
References
Introduction: Marcel Gauchet: His Work in Context
Gauchet’s Post-Marxist Critique
Processual Autonomy and Its Disenchantment
A Social Ontology Stressing the Central Role of the Political
The Contribution of This Collection
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
Part I Marcel Gauchet and the Contemporary Crisis of Democratic Politics
1 Democracy From One Crisis to Another
What Crisis?
Modern Autonomy
The Liberal Reality
The First Crisis of Democracy
The Liberal Democratic Synthesis
The Expansion of Autonomy
The Democracy of Human Rights
A Minimal Democracy
A Crisis in the Foundations of Democracy
Towards Recomposition
Notes
References
2 Populism as Symptom
An Empty Space to Be Filled
A Unifying Transgression
Populist Society
The Forgetting of the Political
Post-Script: The Symptom and the Disease
Globalisation and Populism
The Contradiction in Democracy
A Demand for Democracy
The Revenge of the Political
Notes
Bibliography
Part II Insights Into Marcel Gauchet’s Exploration of Political Modernity
3 Marcel Gauchet and the Eclipse of the Political
Liberal Democracy as a ‘Mixed Regime’
The Rights of Man and ‘Market Society’: Individualism Against the Political
The Becoming of the Political: What ‘Transcendence in Immanence’?
Conclusion
Notes
References
4 The Political Forms of Modernity: The Gauchet–Badiou Debate Over Democracy and Communism
Praxis Philosophy: The Subject and History
Political Forms
Democracy and Communism
Totalitarian Regimes
Democracy: Consolidation and Crisis
Conclusion
Acknowledgement
References
5 Marcel Gauchet’s Political Anthropology: Originary Social Division and the ‘Processual’ Autonomy of a Community
Originary Social Division and the Instituting Power of a Community
Genealogies of the Political: From the Primordial Reflex to a Reflexivity-In-Action
The Problem of Modern Autonomy: Delusional Regimes
Notes
References
Part III Reflections On Marcel Gauchet’s Analysis of Contemporary Democratic Culture
6 The Political History of Individualism
‘From the Advent of the Individual to the Discovery of Society’
‘Tocqueville, America, and Us’
‘Human Rights Are Not a Politics’
From ‘When Human Rights Become a Politics’ to Le Nouveau Monde
Notes
References
7 Human Rights, Legal Democracy, and Populism
The Human Rights Turn in the 1970s
Human Rights Institutions
Social Movements, NGOs, and Dissident Groupings
Human Rights and Legal Democracy
Claude Lefort
Marcel Gauchet
Human Rights and Populism
Concluding Remarks
Notes
References
8 Juridification: Liberal Legalism and the Depoliticisation of Government
Juridification, the Rule of Law, and Fundamental Rights
The Rule of Law
The Rule of Law and Rights
Juridification and Rights
A Common Morality
Dogmatic Liberalism
The Impossibility of a Common Morality
The Inability of the Judicial Method to Resolve Political Conflict
Legitimacy and the Nature of Judicial Power
The Counter-Majoritarian Attraction
The Exclusive Character of Adjudication
The Nature of Legal Reasoning
The Specificity of European Populism
Enshrining Technical Consensus as Law
Constitutionalism and Constituent Power
The Incoherence of the Populist Project
Conclusion
Note
References
9 Thinking the Populist Challenge With and Against Marcel Gauchet
Considering Populism
The Empty Place of Power
The Play of Division
The Separation of Power From Law
The Separation of Power From Knowledge
The Dissolution of the Markers of Certitude
Conclusion: Judging Populism
Notes
References
Part IV Applying Gauchet’s Analysis of Liberal Democracies: Beyond the Crisis?
10 The New World of Neo-Liberal Democracy
Gauchet and History
The Meaning of Modern Autonomy
Contemporary Individualism and the Society of Individuals
Juridification and the Rebirth of Liberal Constitutionalism
The First Revolution of Legitimacy
Liberal Democracy as Historical Synthesis of Three Vectors of Autonomy
Contemporary Juridification and the Loss of Balance Within Liberal Democracy
The ‘Thinkable and Credible’: The Common Ideational Framework Behind Social and Ideological Conflict
The Juridical Individual and the Return of the Political: The Role of the Nation-State, the Place of Capitalism
Liberal Democracy and the Social Nation-State
The Symbolic Infrastructure of the Society of Individuals
Gauchet and the Extroverted Logic of Hypermodern Societies: Globalisation, Europeanisation...
Totalitarianism: The Spectre Haunting European Democracy
Conclusion: Populism and the Neo-Liberal Ideological Virus
Notes
References
Index
