Rescuing politics from liberalism

Abstract

Both Judith Butler and Chantal Mouffe challenge liberal conceptions of politics based on their ontological descriptions of the political. Mouffe argues that the failure of liberalism to grasp the agonistic character of political life means that properly political conflicts get translated into moral terms. Mouffe thinks that the way to correct our “post-political” problems (like alt-right movements) is to avoid translating political conflicts into a moral register. I challenge Mouffe’s separation of ethics and politics by invoking Butler’s more nuanced account of the ethical sphere. I demonstrate that Mouffe does not consider that there are different orders of moral claims (for example, the claims that others have on us to treat them with justice and dignity, claims that at least implicitly demand not to be weighed in terms of economic or political utility); nor does Mouffe consider that there are different orders of affect, some of which cannot be simply opposed to rationality.

BODIES AGAINST MODERNITY: Politics of Slum Rehabilitations in India

“…Kalebai's contentions against the liberal democratic practice of asking for people's consent become comprehensible for two reasons. First, the persistent practice of getting signatures without any real change in her neighbourhood appears to have led to her loss of faith in the liberal democratic rhetoric—as has been the case globally in recent years (Feola, 2018; Morrison, 2018). Secondly, Kalebai appears to be hinting at a deeper connection between her bodily presence and the solid house she has built in the vasti, which a few signatures can neither capture nor undo.…”