{"product_id":"the-misguided-search-for-the-political-hardback-9780745662626","title":"The Misguided Search for the Political (Hardback) 9780745662626","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eThe Misguided Search for the Political\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eLois McNay (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780745662626, Polity Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 25 April 2014\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e224 pages\u003cbr\u003e23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.517 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"McNay offers an insightful and persuasive critique of the social weightlessness of contemporary theories of radical democracy and an impassioned plea for grounding democratic theory in an account power, domination, and embodied social suffering. The Misguided Search for the Political is a radical critique of radical democratic theory, and an important new work from a provocative and original critical theorist.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmy Allen, Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies, Dartmouth College\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The book can be considered a success, as an incisive piece of critical theory but also – thanks to the accessible prose – as a critical introduction to the different radical democratic theories.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePolitical Studies Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eThere has been a lively debate amongst political theorists about whether certain liberal concepts of democracy are so idealized that they lack relevance to ‘real’ politics. Echoing these debates, Lois McNay examines in this book some theories of radical democracy and argues that they too tend to rely on troubling abstractions - or what she terms ‘socially weightless’ thinking. They often propose ideas of the political that are so far removed from the logic of everyday practice that, ultimately, their supposed emancipatory potential is thrown into question. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Radical democrats frequently maintain that what distinguishes their ideas of the political from others is the fundamental concern with unmasking and challenging unrecognized forms of inequality and domination that distort everyday life. But this supposed attentiveness to power is undermined by the invocation of rarefied models of political action that treat agency as an unproblematic given and overlook certain features of the embodied experience of oppression. The tendency of radical democrats to define democratic agency in terms of dynamics of perpetual flux, mobility and agonism passes over too swiftly the way in which objective structures of oppression are often taken into the body as subjective dispositions, leaving individuals with the feeling that they are unable to do little more than endure a state of affairs beyond their control.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Drawing on the work of Adorno, Bourdieu and Honneth, amongst others, McNay argues that in order to make good the critique of power, radical democratic theory should attend more closely to a phenomenology of negative social experience and what it can reveal about the social conditions necessary for effective political agency.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgements vi\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIntroduction 1\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1 Suffering and Social Weightlessness 28\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2 The Unbearable Lightness of Theory: Mouffe’s Dissociative Agonism 67\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3 Freedom beyond the Subject: Feminism, Agency and Agonism 98\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4 All or Nothing: Rancière’s Ruptural Agonism 132\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e5 Pluralism and Practice: The Existential Agonism of Connolly and Tully 168\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eConclusion: Political Theory as Critique: Reconsidering the Negative 207\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotes 220\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eReferences 226\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIndex 241\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSubject Areas: Sociology \u0026amp; anthropology [\u003ca title=\"See our other books on Sociology \u0026amp; anthropology\" href=\"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/search?q=%22Sociology%20\u0026amp;%20anthropology%20%5BJH%5D%22\"\u003eJH\u003c\/a\u003e]\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Polity","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52407328669976,"sku":"9780745662626","price":45.76,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/2037\/5320\/files\/9780745662626.jpg?v=1784162515","url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/the-misguided-search-for-the-political-hardback-9780745662626","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}