Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Denis Vyaznikov - The paradox of fanaticism: Hegemony beyond dangerous victory

This paper re-evaluates fanaticism as a distinct logic of political articulation within post-foundational political thought. Often dismissed as irrational zeal and overlooked in political theory compared to populism, fanaticism is here defined through its differentiation from populism. Both share an antagonistic understanding of the political, but differ significantly: while populism risks losing concrete content in its pursuit of hegemony, fanaticism centres a pure, concrete signifier, sustained by radical commitment and immediate utopian aims. This distinction avoids what Ernesto Laclau terms the ‘dangerous victory’. The paper proposes a concept of fanaticism that is operationalisable for empirical research, applicable not only to historical contexts but also to contemporary radical social movements, such as The Last Generation (Die Letzte Generation). This approach refrains from confining such movements to specific ideological or cultural content, providing a framework for analysing their organizational structures and mobilisation strategies.

George Steinmetz - Regulating the Social. The Welfare State & Local Politics in Imperial Germany

Why does the welfare state develop so unevenly across countries, regions and localities? What accounts for the exclusions and disciplinary features of social programmes? How are elite and popular conceptions of social reality related to welfare policies? George Steinmetz approaches these and other issues by exploring the complex origins and development of local and national social policies in 19th-century Germany. Generally regarded as the birthplace of the modern welfare state, Germany experimented with a wide variety of social programmes before 1914, including the national social insurance legislation of the 1880s, the "Elberfeld" system of poor relief, and modern forms of social work. Looking at changes in welfare policy over the course of the 19th century, differences between state and municipal interventions, and variations in policy, Steinmetz develops an account that focuses on the specific constraints on local and national policy-makers. Whereas certain aspects of the pre-1914 welfare state reinforced social divisions and even foreshadowed aspects of the Nazi regime, other dimensions actually helped to relieve sickness, poverty and unemployment. Steinmetz explores the conditions that led to both the positive and the objectionable features of social policy.

Margaret R. Somers - Genealogies of Citizenship. Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to Have Rights

Genealogies of Citizenship is a remarkable rethinking of human rights and social justice. As global governance is increasingly driven by market fundamentalism, growing numbers of citizens have become socially excluded and internally stateless. Against this movement to organize society exclusively by market principles, Margaret Somers argues that socially inclusive democratic rights must be counter-balanced by the powers of a social state, a robust public sphere and a relationally-sturdy civil society. Through epistemologies of history and naturalism, contested narratives of social capital, and Hurricane Katrina's racial apartheid, she warns that the growing authority of the market is distorting the non-contractualism of citizenship; rights, inclusion and moral worth are increasingly dependent on contractual market value. In this pathbreaking work, Somers advances an innovative view of rights as public goods rooted in an alliance of public power, political membership, and social practices of equal moral recognition the right to have rights.

Immanuel Wallerstein - Africa: the politics of unity. An analysis of a contemporary social movement (1967)

This book by a leading Leftist traces the history of a political movement within Africa from 1957 to 1966 whose objectives was political union within Africa and reorganization of world economies to permit rapid industrialization in Africa and social equality with Europe and North America. It focuses on the birth of the movement, decolonization, the first and second Congro crisis, Rhodesia, South Africa, the OAU, its ideology, and the role of the avant-garde.