Politics of Dialogue: Non-Consensual Democracy and Critical Community

ISBN-13: 9780748644056 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 208 str.

Koczanowicz, Leszek

Opis

A Bakhtinian reassessment of the roles of dialogue, community and democracy in political theory
Contemporary democracy is in crisis. People believe less and less in a system of democratic institutions that can cope with today's social problems. Leszek Koczanowicz sheds new light on this problem, using the ideas of M. M. Bakhtin and others to show that dialogue in democracy can transcend both antagonistic and consensual perspectives.
Koczanowicz provides an overview of the history of the dialogue/antagonism opposition as it is embedded in modern political theory, and the concept of dialogue in contemporary political theory. He goes on to demonstrate that Bakhtin's theory of dialogism can introduce a new quality into political theory, allowing us to overcome the liberalism/communitarianism debate. To conclude, he introduces a concept of 'critical community' - a dialogical, self-reflective community critical of its own tradition - to show that collective identities can be constructed in critical dialogue with the tradition and values of community.

Spis treści

Introduction; 1. Democracy and Everyday Life, 1.1 Pragmatism as a Response to the Crisis of Democracy, 1.2 George Herbert Mead’s Concept of Language as Dialogue, 1.3 George Herbert Mead: The Political, Democracy, and Everyday Life, 1.4 George Hebert Mead: The Self and Democracy – Between Conflict and Integration, 1.5 John Dewey: Individual, Community, and Democracy, 1.6 Conclusion: The Pragmatist Concept of Democracy and its Role in the Contemporary Debate on Democratic Society; 2. Dialogue, Carnival, Democracy: Mikhail Bakhtin and Political Theory, 2.1 Politics and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Notion of Language, 2.2 The utterance as a Unit of Language, 2.3 Ideology and the Utterance, 2.4 Understanding and the Utterance, 2.5 Dialogue, Understanding, and the Utterance, 2.6 Dialogue and the Social, 2.7 Carnival and Democracy, 2.8 Conclusion: Dialogue, Carnival, and Democracy; 3. Critical Community, 3.1 Democracy and Community, 3.2 Modernity and Community: A Genealogy, 3.3 Are Liberalism and Community Eternal Enemies?, 3.4 Communitarian Challenge: Community and Identity, 3.5 Creation, Self-creation, and Community, 3.6 Embodied Communities, 3.7 Critical Community; 4. Coda: Nonconsensual Democracy as a Political Form of Critical Community, 4.1 Democratic Community between Consensus and Disagreement, 4.2 Non-consensual Democracy: Dialogue, Solidarity and Democratic Politics, 4.3 Non-consensual Democracy: Dialogue and Understanding, 4.4 Non-consensual Democracy: Culture, Institutions and Understanding; Index