Universal Hypocrisy? Contradictions between Morality and Practice in Contemporary History - Detailseite

Since the 1970s, there has been a surge of social movements trying to harmonize moral values with political practice and private lives. Simultaneously, accusations of hypocrisy flourished in politics and public discourse. Apparently, people do not like hypocrisy when they recognize it and the media tend to scandalize it. Yet, political scientists argue that hypocrisy has to be endemic in liberal democracies, sociologists suggest that it is a necessary byproduct of organizational structures, and critical theory maintains that it results from global capitalism. In the seminar, we will examine theories of hypocrisy, social movements trying to overcome it, and its use as a political argument, asking what all this means for the transformation of liberal democracies in the recent past.

David Runciman: Political Hypocrisy. The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond, Princeton 2010.

Nils Brunsson: The organization of hypocrisy. Talk, decisions and actions in organizations, Copenhagen ²2006.

Judith N. Shklar: Ordinary vices, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England 1984.

Stephen D. Krasner: Sovereignty. Organized hypocrisy, Princeton NJ 1999.

Colin Crouch: Post-democracy, Cambridge 2004.

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