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Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics

Item

Title
Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics
Abstract/Description
Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics, originally published in 1993, has been called a founding text of agonism, which treats political contestation not as a regrettably necessary way to correct political imperfections but as a necessary, sometimes joyful feature of democratic life. As Bonnie Honig writes in the preface to this thirtieth anniversary edition, "the agonism that informs this book is democratic: it is committed to shared spaces and relational practices in which diverse groups and individuals set and reset the terms of living together as equals."

By rethinking the established relation between politics and political theory, Honig argues that political theorists of opposing positions often treat political theory less as an exploration of politics than as a series of devices for its displacement. She characterizes Kant, Rawls, and Sandel as virtue theorists of politics, arguing that they rely on principles of right, rationality, community, and law to protect their political theories from the conflict and uncertainty of political reality. Drawing on Nietzsche and Arendt as well as Machiavelli and Derrida, Honig instead explores an alternative politics of virtú, which treats the disruptions of political order as valued sites of democratic freedom and individuality.
Author/creator
Date
2016
Publisher
Cornell University Press
Resource type
en
Medium
en Print
Background/context type
en Conceptual
Language
en
ISBN
978-1-5017-1297-5
Citation
Honig, B. (2016). Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Cornell University Press.
Resource status/form
en
Scholarship genre
en

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