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A simple definition of democracy as the rule of the people could be as simple as it sounds if the people as democracy’s collective agent has a visual presence and audible voice. As much as it is foundational for our democratic imaginary, ‘the people’ leaves a paradox or an aporia at the hearth of modern democracy. The continues contestation of the meaning, boundary, voice and will of the people is a fundamental part of democratic contestation itself. This course will examine different conceptualization and ideas about the people as the democratic subject. The way we understand what the people is and how we understand its authoritative will inform our understanding of democratic politics, institutions and procedures. By studying thinkers such as Rousseau, Arendt, Schmitt, Lefort, Ranciere, Laclau and several other contemporary political theorists, this course focuses the question of the people and how different approaches to its paradoxical nature lead different theories of democracy. |
