Why Spontaneity Matters: Rosa Luxemburg and Democracies of Grief

The article seeks to explain why spontaneity, a concept that political theorists have given scant attention to, matters. It argues that it matters because it delivers a capacity for producing democratic change that is urgent to reflect on amidst a prevailing mood of grief over a democracy lost. To stimulate this reflection, the article engages with Rosa Luxemburg’s work, showing how her understanding of spontaneity as an initiative that delivers something for democracy lays the groundwork for a theoretical orientation that allows us to notice the effects of spontaneity on democracy without overplaying its short-lived nature

Monitoring the growth of Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium in silico and in situ with a view in gene expression

In the present study, the ability of S. Typhimurium to develop a biofilm community on rocket tissue was investigated at 20°C. The differences on expression of genes associated with several functional roles during growth of S. Typhimurium on rocket extract and rocket tissue regarding a laboratory growth medium (Luria – Bertani broth, LB) was also monitored. The findings of the present study could show that Salmonella reacts as exposed to different types of stress when inoculated to a heat sterile plant extract and plant tissue. However, further studies are needed to better determine the survival and / or growth of these as “real” biofilm cells on plant tissues

From citizenship to human rights: the stakes for democracy

A review of the literature on citizenship shows a trend away from anchoring citizenship practices to the nation-state and a move towards recasting the concept in universal terms. The paper examines this trend by focusing on the writings of Held, Bohman, and Benhabib. It distinguishes their 'deliberative' approach to citizenship, and suggests that this leads them to reformulate citizenship in a way which differs little from human rights. Although the paper shares in the view that a move to a human rights politics would pave the way for a more equitable order, it argues that there is also a risk. By drawing on the agonistic perspective on democratic politics, the paper shows that the risk is that we might undermine democratic politics by reducing it to a single principle

Citizenship in the age of populism

The tension between citizenship and democracy is well documented in the literature on citizenship. The paper revisits it through the lens of populism. It engages with the critics and proponents of the phenomenon and it argues that the juxtaposition that they all stage between the people and the citizens does not just intensify the tension between the exclusionary politics of citizenship and democracy’s universalising aspirations, but it also threatens to restrict the appeal of citizenship to mainstream liberal theory. The paper concludes by suggesting that the kind of affectivity, which democratic mobilisations draw on, and that one associates with the ‘people’, is often missing from citizenship practices – and this further undermines the connection between citizenship and democracy