southampton.ac.uk
Call for Papers Reimagining Democratic Politics in the Contemporary
Democratic politics today faces an acute global crisis. Whether couched in terms of democratic backsliding, the rise of right-wing anti-democratic movements, or a transformation of the paradigms of liberal-democracy towards democratic authoritarianism, democratic institutions, political projects and forms of life are under attack. On the one hand, rapidly accelerating ecological collapse driven by neoliberal logics of exploitation and accumulation intensify and exacerbate this crisis. On the other, routinised procedures of politics ‘as usual’ - couched within the paradigm of liberal-democracy – prove inadequate for countering these threats to democratic politics. The concern is, therefore, as much an impoverishment of democratic politics as it is an impoverishment of democratic imagination.