anti-politics
“A quoi sert le président des États-Unis?”
December 6th, 2016
Participation à émission “L’Atelier du pouvoir” animé par Ariane Chemin et Vincent Martigny, diffusée le 5 novembre sur France Culture. L’émission dure environ 55 minutes.
Prélude au chaos: les primaires aux États-Unis
May 29th, 2016
Analysis of the early stages of the U.S. Primary Elections on the side of Republicans and Democrats. Who were the candidates, why did they propose to run, what did they want to do? This is a running commentary with critical reflections on the candidates and the parties that they claimed to represent. It was completed after the Super Tuesday primaries which seemed to outline the future results.
Published in the Bi-monthly French magazine Diplomacy, number 80, May-June 2016.
Some of the descriptions and analyses here led to the conclusions proposed in Le Monde, 24 mai 2016, “Les Primaires, un mirage démocratique”.
The resistance of those who desire not to be ruled
June 2nd, 2012
Abstract of article that appeared in Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 38, No 4-5, 2012:
There are many recent historical analogies to the events that began in Tunisia and have spread
across the Arab world and beyond. I consider them, and then propose a ‘Machiavellian’ reading,
going back to the Florentine’s observation that humankind is made up of those who want to
rule and those who desire not to be ruled. I then suggest, by means of an allusion to my recent
book, The Primacy of the Political: A History of Political Thought from the Greeks to the French and
American Revolutions, that the distinction between politics and anti-politics is crucial for the
analysis of the next stages of these revolutions. Finally, with reference to Hannah Arendt’s
considerations of civil disobedience, I suggest a means of interpreting the possibilities that are
on the horizon.
Keywords
anti-politics, Arab Spring, Arendt, Machiavelli, Marx, resistance
Read: The publishers of the journal will not permit posting of articles in Philosophy & Social Criticism!