49 research outputs found
Complex Futures : Problems and Performance of Populism
Book reviews. Reviewed works: Was ist Populismus? Ein Essay / Jan-Werner MĂŒller. - Surhkamp, 2016. 160 pages. ISBN 9783518075227 & Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation / Benjamin Moffitt. - Stanford University Press, 2016. 224 pages. ISBN 9780804799331.Non peer reviewe
'Practicing âEuropeâ : Georg LukĂĄcs, Ăgnes Heller, and the Budapest School' in Decentering European Intellectual Space
This chapter explores the cases of two generations of Budapest School through Georg LukĂĄcs and Ăgnes Heller as transnational intellectuals, and by doing so, investigates from a post-foundational perspective the articulation of Europe through practices. What emerges isa Europe both imagined and physical, divided and asymmetrical. Crucially, it comesabout through its own limits.Taking issue with two left-wing theorists recently demonized in Hungary, thechapter also discusses how the national, the European,and the global are intertwined: the simple opposition of national and cosmopolitan sometimes assumeddoes not hold. The Budapest School, emigrating from Hungary in the 1970s, was established as a conscious effort globally. Here the roles of Ferenc FehĂ©r and Ivan SzelĂ©nyi were crucial for the emergence of the School as an international node for Western Marxist theory from the East, which challenged the division of East and West during the Cold War era.The chapter invites us to reflect upon the conscious strategies of academic branding, power structures, and personal experience of getting possibilities to cross frontiers, and ponder the asymmetries that continue to have positive and negative impacts on European and global academic life. They generate alternative centers of knowledge but also impede the free exploration of new worlds. Georg LukĂĄcs, Ăgnes Heller, Ivan SzelĂ©nyi, Budapest School, intellectuals, EuropePeer reviewe
Performing the nation : the Janus-faced populist foundations of illiberalism in Hungary
Hungary once represented a school-book case of transition to democracy. Now it offers insights into both contemporary Europe and theories of populism and nationalism. Resisting the traditional linear perspective to transition and a âdemographicâ view of democracy, this article explores the relationships among democracy, populism and nationalism. This article operationalises performative and post-foundational theory of populism as a logic of articulation to explain Fidesz and the party leader Viktor OrbĂĄnâs illiberal measures, dichotomies between them and us, ultimately leading to nationalism and xenophobia. It shows how revolution, âilliberalismâ and migrants have served for populist meaning-making and are related to the political polarisation in Hungary. This article enhances the understanding of democracy by discussing the performative features of nation-building, populism and law-making in contemporary politics and finally the âJanus-faceâ of populism. It sees 1989 as a populist moment of constitution of the foundations of a new era but also of the people central to democracy, and recognises attempts to generate similar moments in the 2010s.Peer reviewe
Building a New City through a New Discourse : Street Naming Revolutions in Budapest
Peer reviewe
Democracy vs. demography : Rethinking politics and the people as debate
Rise of populist politics in the 21s century calls scholars and politicians alike to reflect upon the question of how politics and democracy have been understood. Drawing on the theory of hegemony, this article establishes a distinction between democracy and 'demography' as a key line of conceptualization in politics. It highlights a central misunderstanding at the core of the demonization of populism: For radical democratic theory, 'the people' is not a demographic, socio-economic, or historically sedimented category tied to some characteristics, but a performative process of 'being' and 'becoming' 'the people' as a self-consciously enacted polity. This statement challenges the taken-for-granted status of subjectivities of political struggle and links this approach to other contemporary discussions of politics, democracy, and populism. After discussing how anti, neo and post-foundational theoretical accounts on populism reveal a dimension of politics and representation, this article emphasizes action and performativity over static categories and models characteristic of political realism and political system approaches.Peer reviewe
Nordic Populist Parties as Hegemony Challengers
This chapter explores populism in Nordic countries where there is a long tradition of heterogeneous, populist parties with incompatible political ideologies transforming over decades. Populist parties have emerged as a reaction to dominant thinking in each of the political contexts. Theoretically, generating a typology between populist parties, people divide populist parties into mainstream and fringe populist parties. Mainstream populists seek to take over political space as a whole from a central position in the core of politics, as one of the larger and often traditional parties. Fringe populist parties and movements would challenge all the other parties from a supposed outside. Consensus culture in politics is present in all Nordic countries but political systems differ. Nordic populist parties have experienced waves of popularity related to different grievances and protests: from elitism in the 1960s to taxes in the 1970sâ1980s and to immigration from the 1980s and onward.Peer reviewe
Post-Political Development and Emancipation : Urban Participatory Projects in Helsinki
Peer reviewe
Rupture and continuity
Le concept de rĂ©volution joue un rĂŽle important dans la vie politique hongroise, quâil traduise un sentiment de continuitĂ© ou de rupture. LâĂ©criture de lâhistoire de la Hongrie sâest opĂ©rĂ©e en mettant lâaccent sur lâidĂ©e dâun continuum historique entrecoupĂ© de rĂ©volutions. Ce sont ces derniĂšres que les Ă©lites politiques parvenues au pouvoir ont interprĂ©tĂ© tour Ă tour Ă leur façon. Ainsi, la victoire Ă©lectorale Ă©clatante du parti Fidesz au printemps 2010 â qui lui a donnĂ© une majoritĂ© parlementaire historique lui offrant mĂȘme la possibilitĂ© dâeffectuer des rĂ©visions constitutionnelles â a Ă©tĂ© bĂątie sur lâidĂ©e de « rĂ©volution » puis nommĂ©e rĂ©trospectivement comme telle. En adoptant une approche thĂ©orique du discours inspirĂ©e par le travail dâErnesto Laclau, cette communication entend montrer comment le concept de « rĂ©volution » a agi dans la vie politique hongroise Ă la fois comme un signifiant diffus (« a floating signifier » selon la terminologie de Laclau) et un mythe. La rĂ©volution se voit ainsi attribuer de nouveaux sens et est renvoyĂ©e Ă diffĂ©rents contextes afin de lĂ©gitimer le changement tout en entretenant lâillusion de la continuitĂ© avec la tradition politique nationale â tandis quâelle formule cette tradition elle-mĂȘme. En dĂ©finitive, il sâagit dâaborder le paradoxe selon lequel, dans ces circonstances, une rĂ©volution est considĂ©rĂ©e comme une rupture
Rupture and continuity
Le concept de rĂ©volution joue un rĂŽle important dans la vie politique hongroise, quâil traduise un sentiment de continuitĂ© ou de rupture. LâĂ©criture de lâhistoire de la Hongrie sâest opĂ©rĂ©e en mettant lâaccent sur lâidĂ©e dâun continuum historique entrecoupĂ© de rĂ©volutions. Ce sont ces derniĂšres que les Ă©lites politiques parvenues au pouvoir ont interprĂ©tĂ© tour Ă tour Ă leur façon. Ainsi, la victoire Ă©lectorale Ă©clatante du parti Fidesz au printemps 2010 â qui lui a donnĂ© une majoritĂ© parlementaire historique lui offrant mĂȘme la possibilitĂ© dâeffectuer des rĂ©visions constitutionnelles â a Ă©tĂ© bĂątie sur lâidĂ©e de « rĂ©volution » puis nommĂ©e rĂ©trospectivement comme telle. En adoptant une approche thĂ©orique du discours inspirĂ©e par le travail dâErnesto Laclau, cette communication entend montrer comment le concept de « rĂ©volution » a agi dans la vie politique hongroise Ă la fois comme un signifiant diffus (« a floating signifier » selon la terminologie de Laclau) et un mythe. La rĂ©volution se voit ainsi attribuer de nouveaux sens et est renvoyĂ©e Ă diffĂ©rents contextes afin de lĂ©gitimer le changement tout en entretenant lâillusion de la continuitĂ© avec la tradition politique nationale â tandis quâelle formule cette tradition elle-mĂȘme. En dĂ©finitive, il sâagit dâaborder le paradoxe selon lequel, dans ces circonstances, une rĂ©volution est considĂ©rĂ©e comme une rupture