Saul Newman

Abstract—This paper explores the relevance of anarchism for current debates in continental radical political philosophy. It argues that anarchism – as a form of politics which proposes the abolition of state power – is the unacknowledged referent for radical politics today, and that contemporary thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, amongst others, must situate their own political thought in relation to the questions posed by anarchism. Continue reading →

Alexandros Kioupkiolis

Introduction

Contemporary visions of radical democracy mark themselves off from other democratic paradigms through the stronger accent that they place on contingency, antagonism, contestation and openness.This emphasis provides a point of convergence for the otherwise disparate figures sketched out by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, on the one hand, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, on the other. Continue reading →

Judith Butler

Philosophers rarely think about acting in the theatrical sense, but they do have a discourse of “acts” that maintains associative semantic meanings with theories of performance and acting. For example, John Searle’s “speech acts,” those verbal assurances and promises which seem not only to refer to a speaking relationship, but to constitute a moral bond between speakers, illustrate one of the illocutionary gestures that constitutes the stage of the analytic philosophy of language. Continue reading →

Saul Newman

Abstract

In this paper, I call for a re-consideration of anarchism and its alternative ways of conceptualising spaces for radical politics. Here I apply a Lacanian analysis of the social imaginary to explore the utopian fantasies and desires that underpin social spaces, discourses and practices – including planning, and revolutionary politics. I will go on to develop – via Castoriadis and others – a distinctly post-anarchist conception of political space based around the project of autonomy and the re-situation of the political space outside the state. This will have direct consequences for an alternative conception of planning practice and theory. Continue reading →