Democratic Despotisms

by: Marta Nunes Da Costa (Author)

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Publication Date: October 4, 2022

Language: English

Print Length: 195 pages

ISBN-10: 1527589382

ISBN-13: 9781527589384

Book Description

Is it possible to speak of democratic despotisms, to attribute the adjective “democratic”, in the plural, to despotism? Can there be several types of despotism, simultaneously, in a democratic horizon? This book is bo form the intuition that the answer to this question is positive; however, like any work that requires the activity of thinking, the initial hypothesis had to be tested. Through a dialogue with Alexis de Tocqueville, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, this book reconstructs some of their political concepts in order to create a broad theoretical horizon in which we will move. Having set its conceptual horizon, it then progressively builds a diagnosis of our present condition. Despite the difficulties and aporias brought about by liberal democracy, it is necessary to become aware that it has anti-democratic, anti-liberal and even totalitarian seeds within. Human beings oscillate between the search for security and certainty, brought about by the establishment and maintenance of order, and, on the other hand, the desire for a freedom that allows them to believe, to be and to live with others.
Is it possible to speak of democratic despotisms, to attribute the adjective “democratic”, in the plural, to despotism? Can there be several types of despotism, simultaneously, in a democratic horizon? This book is bo form the intuition that the answer to this question is positive; however, like any work that requires the activity of thinking, the initial hypothesis had to be tested. Through a dialogue with Alexis de Tocqueville, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, this book reconstructs some of their political concepts in order to create a broad theoretical horizon in which we will move. Having set its conceptual horizon, it then progressively builds a diagnosis of our present condition. Despite the difficulties and aporias brought about by liberal democracy, it is necessary to become aware that it has anti-democratic, anti-liberal and even totalitarian seeds within. Human beings oscillate between the search for security and certainty, brought about by the establishment and maintenance of order, and, on the other hand, the desire for a freedom that allows them to believe, to be and to live with others. Read more