1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910828385003321

Autore

Vardoulakis Dimitris

Titolo

Stasis Before the State : Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy / / Dimitris Vardoulakis

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, NY : , : Fordham University Press, , [2017]

©2018

ISBN

0-8232-8063-2

0-8232-7741-0

0-8232-7742-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (169 pages) : illustrations, tables

Collana

Commonalities

Disciplina

321.8

320.1501

Soggetti

Sovereignty - Philosophy

Democracy - Philosophy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- CONTENTS -- Preamble: The Ruse of Sovereignty or Agonistic Monism? -- Thesis 1 -- Thesis 2 -- Thesis 3 -- Intermezzo 1 -- Thesis 4 -- Thesis 5 -- Thesis 6 -- Intermezzo 2 -- Thesis 7 -- Thesis 8 -- Thesis 9 -- Acknowledgments -- Notes

Sommario/riassunto

This book critiques the relation between sovereignty and democracy. Across nine theses, Vardoulakis argues that sovereignty asserts its power by establishing exclusions: the sovereign excluding other citizens from power and excludes refugees and immigrants from citizenship. Within this structure, to resist sovereignty is to reproduce the logic of exclusion characteristic of sovereignty. In contrast to this “ruse of sovereignty,” Vardoulakis proposes an alternative model for political change. He argues that democracy can be understood as the structure of power that does not rely on exclusions and whose relation to sovereignty is marked not by exclusion but of incessant agonism. The term stasis, which refers both to the state and to revolution against it, offers a tension that helps to show how the democratic imperative is presupposed by the logic of sovereignty, and how agonism is more primary than exclusion. In elaborating this ancient but only recently



recovered concept of stasis, Vardoulakis illustrates the radical potential of democracy to move beyond the logic of exclusion and the ruse of sovereignty.