If democracy is not simply the name of a institutional type of government, but an endless insurgent against the state (Abensour), the true name of politics as a disruption (Rancière) or an event to which one decides to be faithful (Badiou), then we can speak of an anarchic element within democracy. These (and other) theories of radical democracy highlight a moment of ungovernableness which is said to be constitutive of democracy. From another direction, anarchism has rethought democratic forms of self-organisation which function independent of repressive state-apparatuses.
The seminar will investigate the constitutive anarchy within democracy as well as the democratic potentials within anarchism. The aim is to better understand the relation between democracy and anarchism and thereby this precious and precarious moment of ungovernableness.
Preparatory Reading
Badiou, Alain, Jacques Rancière, Rado Riha und Jelica Šumič (1997): Politik der Wahrheit. Hrsg. von Rado Riha. Wien: Turia + Kant.
Blumenfeld, Jacob (2013): The Anarchist Turn. London: Pluto Press.
Graeber, David (2013 [2009]): Direkte Aktion. Ein Handbuch. Übersetzt von Sophia Deeg. Hamburg: Edition Nautilus.
Kuhn, Gabriel (2009): Vielfalt, Bewegung, Widerstand. Texte zum Anarchismus. Münster: Unrast Verlag.
May, Todd (1994): The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Rancière, Jacques (2011 [2005]): Der Hass der Demokratie. Übersetzt von Maria Muhle. 2. Aufl. Berlin: August.