Political realism is what the hour calls for. But as soon as we say that, the questions multiply. To what does political realism commit us? What does it oppose? The term has already got a varied history. That a view conceives of itself as realist does not guarantee that it is. What is called “political realism” may actually stand in the way of a genuinely realistic grasp of political matters.
We are living today in a state of heightened uncertainty – not least when it comes to politics. Carl Schmitt’s and Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the concept of the political illuminate why that is so.
You can’t make rules for a game, if you don’t know what game is being played.
There are plenty of reasons why we should be interested in China. It is the world’s most populous country with more than a billion people and it presents thus (together with India) a singular challenge as to how a state of such magnitude can be governed.
Trump must be a puzzle to our political realists. He certainly shares their scorn for seeing politics in moral terms. Unlike George W. Bush, he doesn’t speak of an axis of evil in the world; and unlike Obama and the Democrats, he is little concerned with the issue of human…
We are living today in an age of surveillance which is still expanding its reach. For all that we are still not paying enough attention to this development and its implications for human life.
Technology has transformed and deformed our long-evolved political order and it is likely to do more of that. A technologically enabled economic and financial system has certainly diminished the regulatory power of the state. Goods, services, and people can now move easily across continents, not always under the control of governments. Pictures, words, ideas, and information are massively channeled within and between political systems, often defying the power of states but also often abetting it. At the same time, the state’s tools of surveillance and repression have become definitely more effective. Its military strength has vastly increased and can be projected over wider distances. We notice, thus, a diminution of state power in some respects, but also an increase in others.
We can distinguish three styles of political philosophy: abstract normative theorizing, political realism, and diagnostic practice. In this lecture I argue that diagnostic practice should be fundamental to political philosophy since it concerns the epistemological conditions of political thinking. Click for the power point lecture
Globalization is out and nation states are in, if you believe the agitators. The reality is, however, quite different. The nation state was never a happy construct and technological change has undermined it once and for all. But what comes next? Justified anxieties about where we are going and what globalization will bring us have cast the idea of the nation state in a new, unexpectedly rosy light. It’s, however, a false and deceptive light.
Rana Dasgupta has written a terrific article in The Guardian explaining the demise of the nation state, why it is unlikely to come back, and what to do about it. Don’t miss it.
Michael Shirrefs, an Australian researcher and journalist, and his wife came to visit me for an interview. We talked about politics, America, European unity and disunity, and finally the question whether we still have a concept of the common good.
The rise of Xi Jinping has made Hong Kong democrats increasingly nervous. But the main threat to their goal to make Hong Kong more democratic does not even come from the authorities in Beijing; it comes from their own home-grown capitalists. The case of Hong Kong raises broad questions about the state of global politics and the future of democracy.
What is populism? The most serious mistake in trying to answer this question lies in the (usually unspoken) assumption that where we have a single word or term there must be a single corresponding concept and that the word will therefore refer to a singular definite phenomenon.
For those living in the United States the conditions of American politics will, for obvious reasons, be of some interest. But given the economic, political, and military power of the US it is not surprising to discover that American politics is scrutinized all over the world. When one looks at the International media one notices how much attention they pay to American affairs.
Does this mean that American politics also has a particular interest for political philosophy?
Imperfect cognitive states are characteristic of social and political life. But these are not the cognitive states our epistemologists have in view. We need to consider, in particular, states of uncertainty and disorientation since those are now so prevalent in our politics.
„Die fortwährende Umwälzung der Produktion, die ununterbrochene Erschütterung aller gesellschaftlichen Zustände, die ewige Unsicherheit und Bewegung zeichnet die Bourgeoisie-epoche vor allen anderen aus“, schreibt Karl Marx 1848 in seinem Kommunistischen Manifest. Und er fährt fort: „Alle festen, eingerosteten Verhältnisse mit ihrem Gefolge von altehrwürdigen Vorstellungen und Anschauungen werden aufgelöst, alle neugebildeten veralten, ehe sie verknöchern können”. Um diese Entwicklungen zu verstehen brauchen wir eine neue Form von politischer Philosophie.
„Anthropos physei politikon zoon“. Wir übersetzen gemeinhin: „Der Mensch ist von Natur aus ein politisches Wesen“. Der Satz steht so im ersten Buch der Politik des Aristoteles und ist gewiss der bekannteste, der am häufigsten nachgesprochene, vielleicht auch der wichtigste, weil zugleich der grundlegendste in diesem Werk.[1] Der Satz ist grundlegend, insofern als er besagt, dass man die Politik von der Natur des Menschen her verstehen muss und nicht, wie Platon in seiner Politeia, von der Idee des Guten her. Aristoteles wird mit diesem Satz zum Begründer der politischen Anthropologie.
Globalisierung ist zunächst ein Prozess menschlicher Machterweiterung, der mit technischen Fertigkeiten und technologischen Mitteln betrieben wird. In der so entstehenden globalisierten Welt wird die menschliche Machtausübung aber zunehmend der Macht der Gegebenheiten, Umstände, Ereignisse und Dinge ausgeliefert. Das Dilemma offenbart sich täglich in den Metropolen der Erde. Ihre Hochhäuser, Straßenschluchten und Verkehrssysteme sind Monumente der menschlichen Machtentfaltung aber auch des individuellen menschlichen Machtverlustes.
Ich beginne mit zwei Überlegungen. Die erste ist, dass wir uns heute in einer globalen politischen Krise befinden, die uns zunächst einmal mit einer Zahl von sehr schwierigen aber unmittelbar praktischen Problemen konfrontiert. Aber dazu kommt noch etwas anderes, das vielleicht weniger ins Auge sticht, nämlich, dass diese Krise auch unser Verständnis, von dem was Politik bedeutet, was wir von ihr zu erwarten haben, und was sie von uns verlangt, betrifft – dass, um es anders zu sagen, auch unser Begriff von Politik in eine Krise geraten ist zusammen mit einer ganzen Reihe anderer politischer Begriffe wie Staat, Regierung, Freiheit, Recht, Demokratie, usf. Nietzsches Gedanken zur Politik weisen auf dieseKrise hin.
