New book: Radical Democracy

A new book from my colleague Lars Tonder and his co-editor, Lasse Thomassen, Radical Democracy: Politics Between Abundance and Lack. Conrtributors include Simon Critchley, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Moufffe, and Paul Patton. Unfortunately, it is quite expensive since it has only been published in hardcover. But, libraries can be encouraged to purchase it. As the Manchester University Press site explains:

Radical democracy brings together original contributions from established and emerging scholars. The contributors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the two dominant approaches to radical democracy: theories of abundance inspired by Gilles Deleuze and theories of lack inspired by Jacques Lacan. They examine the idea of radical democracy from a wide variety of perspectives: identity/difference, the public sphere, social movements, nature, popular culture, right wing populism, and political economy. In addition, the volume relates the work of contemporary thinkers such as Deleuze, Lacan, Derrida and Foucault to classical thinkers such as Spinoza, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche. William E. Connolly and Ernesto Laclau conclude the volume with two afterwords on the future of radical democracy. With its original contributions, Radical democracy is essential reading for advanced students and scholars who have an interest in the political and theoretical problems of radical democracy.

The table of contents:

Introduction: rethinking radical democracy between abundance and lack –  Lars Tønder and Lasse Thomassen

Part I. Radical democracy: abundance and/or lack?

1. The absence at the heart of presence: radical democracy and the ontology of lack – Oliver Marchart

2. Two routes from Hegel – Nathan Widder

3. Deleuze and democratic politics – Paul Patton

4. The wild patience of radical democracy: beyond Žižek’s lack – Romand Coles

5. Theorising hegemony: between deconstruction and psychoanalysis – Aletta J. Norval

6. In/exclusions: towards a radical democratic approach to exclusion – Lasse Thomassen

Part II. The politics of radical democracy

7. For an agonistic public sphere – Chantal Mouffe

8. In parliament with things – Jane Bennett

9. The radical democratic possibilities of popular culture – Jon Simons

10. Radical and plural democracy: in defence of right/left and public reason – Torben Bech Dyrberg

11. Negativity and radical democracy: radical democracy beyond reoccupation and conformism – Yannis Stavrakakis

12. Inessential commonality: immanence, transcendence, abundance –  Lars Tønder

13. True democracy: Marx, political subjectivity and anarchic meta-politics – Simon Critchley

Part III. Afterwords

14. Immanence, abundance, democracy – William E. Connolly

15. The future of radical democracy – Ernesto Laclau

Comments

[marcegoodman]

Thanks for bringing this collection to our attention. I am especially pleased to see "abundance and/or lack" as an organizing theme. It is very tempting even at its steep price, although having paid full price for a couple of standard issue college textbooks recently, it almost qualifies as a bargain.

[chris robinson]

Thanks Jodi -- The book looks great. And while it is a bit expensive, I think the piece by Jane Bennett alone is worth the price.