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The article offers information on the concept of conceptualist war machine as well as agonism and avant-gardism. It discusses several works contemporary poetry including Kenneth Goldsmith's "Seven American Deaths and Disasters" and Charles Reznikoff's "Holocaust." It also discusses the long history of avant-garde and warfare.

An essay is presented on the convergence of philosophers Jacques Derrida and Gillian Rose's works on survival's agonism over perfectibility. Topics include a description of Derrida's last interview "Learning to Live Finally" and Rose's memoir "Love's Work," Derrida's obsession with his legacy and inheritance, and how Derrida and Rose face their death.

Many contemporary conflicts are framed as antagonistic and difficult to resolve because of their zero-sum framing among the disputants. This article addresses the antagonism–agonism nexus and the political and contested nature of building peace. It has a three-fold aim: (1) to critically assess the interplay between constructive and destructive dynamics; (2) to analyse the circumstances under which conflict may move from antagonism to agonism; and (3) to advance the novel notion of agonistic peacebuilding. The Middle East Peace process is used as a critical case of intractable conflict to elucidate the enabling and restraining conditions for agonistic peacebuilding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyse the potentials of co-design interventions as a new approach to urban development, moving the development of urban spaces from the domain of urban planners to a shared domain between the professionals and citizens who use them. The developments of urban space in this way come to involve the often-diverging opinions and use practices of citizens, and enable new flexibility in the interpretation of urban futures. Co-design processes are becoming relevant for the development of urban spaces not least due to the increasing focus on ‘liveability’ in large European cities, a perspective that challenges planners to re-imagine their work practices. I argue that agonistic urban development and viewing the urban setting in an assemblage perspective are productive frameworks for analysing co-design interventions in the three cases from Copenhagen studied in the paper. The paper concludes that co-design interventions do indeed present new possibilities for the development of urban spaces. By diversifying the group of stakeholders, reconfiguring the urban spaces in question and translating the diverse user perspectives from urban life into planning practices, interventions can impact the socio-technical development of the city. The study shows how co-design interventions can assist in the re-imagination of urban futures for planners and citizens alike. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article supplements and extends the ontological security theory in International Relations (IR) by conceptualizing the notion of mnemonical security. It engages critically the securitization of memory as a means of making certain historical remembrances secure by delegitimizing or outright criminalizing others. The securitization of historical memory by means of law tends to reproduce a sense of insecurity among the contesters of the ‘memory’ in question. To move beyond the politics of mnemonical security, two lines of action are outlined: (i) the ‘desecuritization’ of social remembrance in order to allow for its repoliticization, and (ii) the rethinking of the self–other relations in mnemonic conflicts. A radically democratic, agonistic politics of memory is called for that would avoid the knee-jerk reactive treatment of identity, memory and history as problems of security. Rather than trying to secure the unsecurable, a genuinely agonistic mnemonic pluralism would enable different interpretations of the past to be questioned, in place of pre-defining national or regional positions on legitimate remembrance in ontological security terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chantal Mouffe's conceptualization of a deliberatively forged consensus as a hegemony and her assertion that adversarial politics best nurtures the conditions of freedom have had a profound infl uence on contemporary democratic thought. This article takes a critical view of this trend, arguing that a norm of consensus is a very precondition, rather than impediment, for the kind of pluralistic democracy Mouffe and other agonists wish to promote. It is asserted that Mouffe's dehistoricized refutation of consensus lacks causal or explanatory relevance to how concrete actors embedded in empirical situations relate to one another and that the very preparedness to fi nd something acceptable about another is at the heart of what it means to treat others justly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the current research program in agonistic dialogic accounting and to reflect on future possibilities for broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems, especially as they relate to social and environmental accounting (SEA). Design/methodology/approach – The authors describe an ethic of accountability as a context for dialogue and debate intended to broaden out and open up new imaginings of accounting for democracy. The authors review the accounting literature addressing dialogic accounting and agonistics as the precursor of what has evolved into agonistic dialogic accounting. The authors discuss their work to date on agonistic pluralism and engagement, recognizing the necessity of linking the normative framework to an effective political program. The authors review prior studies applying science and technology studies that have addressed these issues. Findings – The authors consider how the application of agonistic ideas might facilitate the development of multiple accountings that take pluralism seriously by addressing constituencies and perspectives often marginalized in both SEA and mainstream accounting. An ethic of accountability and science and technology studies are useful for stimulating dialogue and debate regarding democratic and civil society institutions as they relate to economic entities, especially corporations. Practical implications – Agonistic dialogic accounting in conjunction with other disciplines such as science and technology studies can be used in formulating, implementing and evaluating policy for advancing a progressive social agenda. Originality/value – A reflective view of the current work in agonistic dialogic accounting highlights considerations for further research regarding the possible interdisciplinary work particularly with science and technology studies in broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems as facilitators of progressive social agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberation and protest have usually been understood as two mutually exclusive ways of practicing democracy. It has been argued that protests, due to their adversarial nature, and orientation toward conflict would hinder, rather than enhance, the prospects for deliberation. The recent cycle of protests, including the Arab Spring, Indignados and Occupy Wall Street, has however shown that contentious politics do not necessarily stand in opposition to the idea of deliberative democracy. On the contrary, these protests feature important deliberative qualities. In this article, we seek to identify the deliberative dimension of the recent wave of protests. We do so through a close analysis of theoretical approaches in democratic theory and by drawing on the 2013 protests in Brazil and Turkey. We show that deliberative democracy is not antithetical to conflicts and agonism generated by protests. In fact, protests constitute an integral part of public deliberation, especially when the latter is understood in broader terms, in terms of public conversation that occurs in multiple sites of communication. We argue that the deliberative dimension of the aforementioned protests is manifested in: (i) how they were organized, (ii) how they were carried out and (iii) what they have achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the political philosophy of agonism has been applied by urban theorists to model intercultural urban encounters in so-called ‘micro-publics’, such as the workplace or the classroom. The paper examines to what extent agonism offers a viable model for dealing with urban diversity in these mundane, social encounters. I will argue that, applied to these lower-level social contexts, agonism takes the vulnerability of citizens with regard to their ethnic, cultural or religious attachments insufficiently into account. The resulting injuries will most likely be counter-productive to the goal of living with diversity. By way of a contrast, I will offer two less demanding, more practicable types of intercultural civility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I argue against understanding and treating nature as external. Arguing against such externality of nature, I suggest that the human situation is best understood by reference to postnatural right. As abstract and revolutionary, such right is critical, leveling, and teleological. This forms the basis of a formative metaphysics that I proceed to test against the concept of the common good and a recent theological engagement with climate change. At the conclusion, I argue that the plurality of nature recommends understanding society as a 'greater society' that in turn has implications for how we think about civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Max Weber was pessimistic regarding the effects of rationalization and bureaucracy on human life and freedom, he saw the disenchantment of the world that results from the ascent of science and rationalism and the decline of religious and mystical interpretations of human experience as expanding the capacity for human freedom and moral responsibility. Moreover, he saw agonistic politics as checking the power of bureaucracy. Consequently, despite the conflict between the politicized character of American public administration and Weber’s views on the role of public administrators, his ideas on value pluralism and politics have important implications for American public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article argues that despite frequent debates about the excesses of government, public administration lacks a systematic theoretical examination of the concept of moderation. To that end, the article first questions the ancient Hellenic wisdom of moderation, which necessitates observance of the limits of the self. In concluding that the classic approach is restrictively conservative, the article builds on Nietzsche to propose an alternative approach, agonistic moderation. Agonistic moderation offers a possibility for challenging the situational boundaries of the self in a healthy contest in a community that serves as both the soil and the weight on the individual ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tolerance is everywhere. The Council of Europe endeavours to build it, schools are required to teach it, and neighbours are asked to extend it. It features in citizenship ceremonies, city-marketing campaigns, and religious texts and is attached to a variety of different objects, people, and behaviours. Yet despite its ubiquitous circulation as a moral good, critiques of tolerance as a way of relating have called for its rejection in favour of alternative projects such as respect and equality. In this paper I contextualise recent critiques and ask what possibilities remain for a politics of tolerance in multicultural Europe. In so doing, I argue that critiques are insufficiently attuned to the different contexts in which tolerance becomes productive and offer a starting point for further empirical research on its embodied practice. Using an example of dialogue, I argue that tolerance can be intrinsic to the development of alternative relations when positioned as part of an ongoing struggle to multiply ways of thinking and acting. I finish by reflecting on the relationship between tolerance, agonism, and dialogue, to outline a more pragmatic politics of difference, arguing that it is not enough to call for alternative projects without attending to the difficult and incremental learning that such projects demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on issues concerning agonism as well as the interpretation of Hannah Arendt's theory of politics. It reveals the Arendt's writings outline two major interpretations of the concept of politics, noting that the concept of action is the center of Arendt's understanding of the political. The use of deliberative or discursive model in interpreting Arendt's concept of politics is mentioned.

An essay is presented on context of the common law and the theoretical framework of agonism. Topics discussed include the aspects of confrontational relationships on end-state laws, the concept of descendent agonims and the American common-law tradition. The author also critics the Emersonian pragmatism and the methods of empricism, fallibilism and mentalism.

This paper attempts a Foucauldian analysis of power, position and agony in Pinter's One for the Road (1984). Pinter was a leading British political playwright in the 20th century. In his plays, he focused on the political situation and distinguished between power-haves and power-have nots: the oppressor and the oppressed. In the play One for the Road, he brings out the impact of power and position on people, leading to their agony. Through the course of the play, he describes different dimensions of power. The aim of this study is to discuss how Pinter has depicted the abuse of power and position, causing agony by the totalitarians controlling and subduing the people, from a Foucauldian perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mouffe argues that the effective way of challenging the power relations in liberal democratic capitalism is to embrace agonism, not antagonism. That is, the left should acknowledge the contingent character of the hegemonic configurations in liberal democracies, and in order to put liberty and equality into practice, it should similarly adopt hegemonic tactics. Such tactics include the disarticulation of existing practices as well as creation of new discourses and institutions. Yet, by stating that 'the task of democracy is to transform the antagonism into agonism,' Mouffe also implies that antagonism should precede agonism and thus contradicts her very position of how to challenge the neoliberal order. Indeed, the anti-neoliberal movements that occurred in Latin American countries in 1990s as well as in New York, Greece, Spain, and elsewhere during the occupy movement in 2010s show that without the emergence of antagonism, there is no room for the development of democracy in an agonistic way. In defense of this argument, this article conducts a within case research in Turkey in order to attain a deeper analysis of how the rise of a social movement can transform the conflicts and power relationships in neoliberalism from being hidden to being visible: The social movement in Turkey helped in the discursive construction of a left-wing identity that represented 'everything but the repressive and authoritarian government' and thus acted as the neoliberal government's constitutive other. Prior to the appearance of the social movement, yet, the hegemonic articulations of the neoliberal order prevented agonistic politics from arising in the first place. This article thus argues that the agonistic approach of democracy can only emerge following an open antagonistic construction of the we/they relation in a neoliberal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents literary criticism of several plays by Lady Gregory, including "A Losing Game," "Shanwalla," and "On the Racecourse". Particular focus is given to the role of games in her plays and translations. According to the author, Gregory's gender, age, and political distance from the Irish Revival and its attendant nationalism allowed her to critique the concept of agôn and idealize mimetic invention.

This paper is concerned with outlining how the ethnocentric pragmatism of Richard Rorty may serve, from an epistemological standpoint, to consolidate the practical advantages that agonism possesses over deliberationism in the field of political philosophy. However, some problems are noted in the specific way that Rorty develops his particular agonist liberalism with regard to a potentially contradictory conception of the ethical-political place granted to victims of cruelty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses various multidisciplinary approach and theoretical perspectives on the study of democracy to explore insights into the existing democratic theories including liberalism, citizineship and agonism.

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This article explores the productive role of provocation in YouTube publics in the context of two culturally and geographically situated visual events that took place in New Zealand throughout 2011. Through qualitative analysis of the extensive comments fields for the two videos, the article examines the nature of participatory acts associated with what has been called at different times flaming, hating or trolling. The article argues that such acts can only be properly understood within their cultural and geographic context and in their ability to affect and extend ‘agonistic’ publics. The analysis addresses online passion, conflict and vitriol through the notion of ‘acts of citizenship’, as productive forms of provocation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is increasing recognition among human geographers that conceptualising the spatiality of peace is a vital component of our collective disciplinary praxis. Within this emergent literature, this paper seeks to position anarchism as an ethical philosophy of nonviolence and the absolute rejection of war. Such an interpretation does not attempt to align nonviolence to any particular organised religious teaching, as has recently been advocated by some geographers. Instead, the paper argues that the current practices of religion undermine the geographies of peace by fragmenting our affinities into discrete pieces. Advancing a view of anarchism as nonviolence, the paper goes beyond religion to conceptualise peace as both the unqualified refusal of the manifold-cum-interlocking processes of domination, and a precognitive, pre-normative and presupposed category rooted in our inextricable entanglement with each other and all that exists. Yet far from proposing an essentialist view of humanity or engaging a naturalised argument that reconvenes the “noble savage”, the paper contextualises the arguments within the processual frameworks of radical democracy and agonism in seeking to redress the ageographical and ahistorical notions of politics that comprise the contemporary post-political zeitgeist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article draws on Chantal Mouffe's disavowal of consensual liberal complacency to show how her defence of agonistic pluralism, along with her case for dissensual artivism, could contribute to the theoretical resurgence of post-colonial studies. It seeks to develop a dialogue between Mouffean radicalism and post-colonial theory. Mouffean political findings are already in practice in the everyday dynamics of post-colonial reality.

The article the author's discussion on the importance of distinguishing between passions and emotions and their role in politics. She requires the need to be acquainted with the theoretical framework in order to understand passions and how it is seen in politics. She dissipates a possible confusion about an understanding of agonism by highlighting the significant differences existing between her approach and some other agonistic theories.

The article examines the account of agonistic pluralism of Chantal Mouffe. It shows that instead of being a source of instability within the democratic discourse and therefore relegated into the private non-political sphere, passions and values that are constitutive of these subject positions ought to be incorporated into the public political sphere. It also draws attention to an aspect of Mouffe's account of agonistic democracy, particularly problems on both participation and exclusion.

The article discusses the work of Chantal Mouffe, which influences various disciplines such as politics, sociology, cultural studies, geography, architecture and art. Her work challenges readers to reflect on what it means to work within and against politics. She explains further her conception of passion, along with the notion of agonism.

The article explores the challenge of the feminist critique in the 1990s of the then contemporary views on the rhetorical tradition. Topics discussed include a positive alternative model for agonistic argument based in perceptual metaphors suggested by feminist critiques, some feminist arguments that question argument including the use of confrontational rhetoric and a perceived relation between violence and rhetoric.

The article discusses the theories of Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe, specifically radical democracy. The authors comment on pluralism, liberalism, and agonism. The idea of redefining the meaning of politics is explored as well as the ideas of German philosopher and political theorist Carl Schmitt.

The article discusses the relationship between conflict and policy with a specific focus on political communication and deliberation as well as agonism. The authors compare and contrast viewpoints from the following moral and political philosophers: German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas, American John Rawls, and Scottish Alaisdair MacIntyre. The moral and ethical aspects of political science, values, and pluralism are explored. Other topics mentioned include human action, Marxist philosophy, and German economist and sociologist Max Weber.

Insults play a key role in social interaction in the agonistic culture of the Middle East. This article constructs a social scientific model of social interaction regarding face work and insults and then filters the Gospel of Matthew through that model to highlight the prevalence of insult in the biblical world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to trace the implementation of biculturalism in the New Zealand Playcentre Federation between 1989, when a public commitment to The Treaty of Waitangi was made, and 2011, when Tiriti-based co-presidents were elected. Design/methodology/approach -- The data were drawn from the Playcentre Journal and papers from Playcentre National meetings, as well as from the author's experience as a Pākehā participating in Playcentre. The events are analysed using democratic theory. Findings -- Despite a willingness to encompass biculturalism, the processes of democracy as originally enacted by Playcentre hindered changes that allowed meaningful rangatiratanga (self-determination) by the Māori people within Playcentre. The factors that enabled rangatiratanga to gain acceptance were: changing to consensus decision making, allowing sub groups control over some decisions, and the adult education programme. These changes were made only after periods of open conflict. The structural changes that occurred in 2011 were the result of two decades of persistence and experimentation to find a way of honouring Te Tiriti within a democratic organisation. Social implications -- The findings suggest that cultural pluralism within a liberal democratic organisation is best supported with an agonistic approach, where an underlying consensus of world view is not assumed but instead relies on a commitment by the different cultures to retaining the political association within the structure of the organisation. Originality/value -- Many organisations in New Zealand, especially in education, struggle to implement biculturalism, and the findings of this study could be useful for informing policy in such organisations. This history of Playcentre continues from where previous histories finished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between Indigenous women and the Australian women's movement have never been easy. For some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women the white women's movement has seemed irrelevant to the real struggles in Aboriginal women's lives, which have tended to be more politically aligned with Indigenous struggles more broadly. Many Aboriginal women have viewed white feminists as insensitive to their own role in Australia's colonial history and the implications of this for contemporary intercultural relations. In response to such criticism, many white feminists have struggled with the challenge of effective cross cultural engagement and collaboration. This chapter brings an intersectional analysis to bear in an effort to understand these challenges, developing a framing of agonistic processes of collective identity as a way of thinking about the potentially productive role of conflict in social movements. Through an examination of Indigenous and non-Indigenous responses to a particular policy framework, the chapter suggests that feminist interventions focussing on the negative, racist impacts of the policy have tended to neglect the gendered dimensions of the underlying problem. As a result these arguments risk neglecting ( some) women's lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues that the kind of flesh of people who bear the chains of U.S. mass incarceration is a flesh that takes itself as vulnerable human being, but which transforms its vulnerable agonism into artistic practices into modes of collective organization.

We aim to find a way to produce knowledge of attractiveness of place that is representative of the variety and complexity of what attractiveness entails and the same time productive for place development and planning. On the basis of a study of an INTERREG IV A-project in Norway, we question how and by whom the discourse regarding what is attractive about places is constructed and how the implicit or explicit knowledge is treated in local planning. We find that planning must produce knowledge in which the different narratives about place confront each other, and highlight differences and mutual debate between adversaries. We conclude by arguing the case for applying a model of agonistic pluralism where the coproduction of discursive knowledge from 'a logic of difference' is at the heart of planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agonist theorists have argued against deliberative democrats that democratic institutions should not seek to establish a rational consensus, but rather allow political disagreements to be expressed in an adversarial form. But democratic agonism is not antagonism: some restriction of the plurality of admissible expressions is not incompatible with a legitimate public sphere. However, is it generally possible to grant this distinction between antagonism and agonism without accepting normative standards in public discourse that saliently resemble those advocated by (some) deliberative democrats? In this paper we provide an analysis of one important aspect of political communication, the use of slippery-slope arguments, and show that the fact of pluralism weakens the agonists' case for contestation as a sufficient ingredient for appropriately democratic public discourse. We illustrate that contention by identifying two specific kinds of what we call pluralism slippery slopes, that is, mechanisms whereby pluralism reinforces the efficacy of slippery-slope arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights are a suspect project – this seems the only sensible starting point today. This suspicion, however, is not absolute and the desire to preserve and reform human rights persists for many of us. The most important contemporary critiques of human rights focus on the problematic consequences of the desire for universal rights. Some defenders of human rights accept elements of this critique in their reformulations, but opponents remain wary of the desire to think and act in human rights terms because of their limitations as a political ethics. Yet, we hesitate to abandon human rights. In this article, I look at the political critique of human rights in greater detail. I argue that an agonistic account drawing on the work of William Connolly and Bonnie Honig offers the best response to the most important contemporary critiques of human rights, and a clearer account of what it means to claim that human rights do valuable work. The key developments of this agonistic view of human rights are its focus on the ambiguity of ‘humanity’ as a political identity and the challenge to legitimate authority and membership that new rights claims make. In the end, human rights are defended as a universal political ethos focused on the pluralization and democratization of global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Jürgen Habermas's theory of 'discourse ethics' has been an important source of inspiration for theories of deliberative democracy and is typically contrasted with agonistic conceptions of democracy represented by theorists such as Chantal Mouffe. In this article I show that this contrast is overstated. By focusing on the different philosophical traditions that underpin Mouffe's and Habermas's respective approaches, commentators have generally overlooked the political similarities between these thinkers. I examine Habermas's and Mouffe's respective conceptions of democratic politics and argue that they cannot be so neatly distinguished from each other. I show that much of Mouffe's criticism of Habermas's theory does not hold up to careful scrutiny, and discourse ethics shares important points of similarity with her own democratic theory. By using critical republican theory to show the similarities in their work, I push beyond the agonistic versus deliberative debate, and show that at the heart of both of these approaches is a critical republican emphasis on the need for civic solidarity, on the constructive role of conflict in democratic politics and on the vital importance of self-government. These are crucial ingredients for the regeneration of democracy in contemporary pluralistic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of attempts to achieve consensus through Habermasian 'communicative rationality' dismiss this as unachievable due to participants' selfishness and irrationality, and the inevitability of power relations. Instead, Mouffe advocates 'agonistic pluralism', a dynamic process of continual debate grounded in mutual respect. In this paper I argue that, for this to succeed, we need to recognize and embrace the role of emotion in moral reasoning. Here, I examine a dispute over wetland management in suburban New Jersey. Each side articulated distinct understandings of what was and was not vulnerable, backed by emotional appeals partly based in self-interest but that also encompassed care and concern for others. Each side accused the other of being irrational and immoral, drawing 'moral microboundaries' between them. I conclude that participants in a public debate may not simply be pursing self-serving goals, nor might open communication resolve their differences. Instead, each may be deeply convinced that he or she is advocating the most rational and moral course of action. This questions the very notion of a unitary, potentially agreed-upon 'common good' and instead challenges us to attempt to grasp each other's moral worlds, and in particular the emotional bases of these, through the seeming oxymoron that I term 'empathic agonism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the German film trilogy "Dreileben," which includes "Etwas Besseres als den Tod," directed by Christian Petzold, "Komm mir nicht nach," directed by Dominik Graf, and "Eine Minute Dunkel," directed by Christoph Hochhaüsler. The author analyzes these films in regard to their use of agonistic politics and explores their appeal through the political theory of French philosopher Jacques Rancière.

This essay interrogates the concept of the city as a space of universal rights and collective futures. With a focus on how the urban poor are integrated into the city through processes of differentiated inclusion – the people with papers versus those without – it suggests that a politics of agonism rather than a politics of the social whole be considered in analyzing and imagining urban futures. Situated in the context of urban change in India, it argues that such agonism can also be the basis of a politics of solidarity, one that can disrupt the entrepreneurial logic of the world-class city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]