Critical Political Theory: Interrogating Contemporary Politics - Paperback

by Oliver Flügel-Martinsen (Author), Michael Thomas Taylor (Translator)

How can political theory strengthen democracy and emancipatory social change while remaining critical of its own norms and foundations? How can it confront populist movements that claim to defend democracy but in fact advance authoritarian agendas? Oliver Flügel-Martinsen engages with key thinkers of the political - among them M. Foucault, J. Derrida, C. Lefort, C. Mouffe, I. M. Young, J. Rancière, W. Brown, R. Geuss, A. Mbembe, and J. Butler - to address these challenges. Revisiting truth-skeptical approaches, neoliberal hegemony, exclusions in the name of an essentialist understanding of the people, and global injustices, he explores how critical theory can help us escape the present in working toward a different future.

Author Biography

Oliver Flügel-Martinsen is professor of political theory and history of political thought at Universität Bielefeld. His main research fields are theories of the political, democratic theory, contemporary French philosophy and social theory, as well as Post-Marxist critical social theory. ---