Articles: The Current Crisis of Democracy / The Ontology of Political Decisionism, Negative Statecraft, and the Nigerian State: Exploring Moral Altruism in Politics
The doyen of the European New Right, the French philosopher, Alain de Benoist, thinks about "The Current Crisis of Democracy" in an article published in the latest issue of the journal, "Telos" (156, fall 2011: pp. 7-23). The article forms part of a special issue of the journal on "Democracy and Nations".
From the editor's introduction: "At stake are the limits of contemporary politics in the developed western democracies. Telos has elsewhere addressed political economy in China and the problems of Putinism in post-Communist Russia. The political dynamics of such non-democratic regimes can offer comparative examples, as could the tendencies toward neo-totalitarianism in Islamist radicalism. Yet what we can currently watch is the dysfunctionality of the most democratic systems, not their antipodes. What hampers political decision-making in democratic Europe and in the United States? How close to the brink does a democracy have to stumble in order to reach a decision?
"As Alain de Benoist writes at the conclusion of the opening essay in this issue, 'The current crisis of democracy is above all a crisis of politics,' which can only mean that we are facing systemic problems in democratic politics. For Benoist, democracy is buckling under the pressure of seemingly antithetical, but ultimately compatible, evil twins: 'In short, trapped between economics and morality, the ideology of the marketplace and the ideology of human rights, contemporary democracy is less and less democratic because it is less and less political. The economy is able to impose its law under the cover (and in the language) of rights.'"
Also included in this special issue is an article by Roland Olufemi Badru (University of Ibadan), "The Ontology of Political Decisionism, Negative Statecraft, and the Nigerian State: Exploring Moral Altruism in Politics" (pp. 47-60).
This essay was originally written for a conference section on "Political Decisionism and Statecraft in Africa" that I organized and chaired at the Eleventh Conference of Africanists of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in May 2008. It is always gratifying to see that papers written for SCIS events get published in well-regarded journals.
The editor writes: "In Badru's account, [Carl] Schmitt's concern with the sovereign and his maintenance of power points directly to issues of the personal power of the sovereign and its power-political consequences. This moral egoism, Badru argues, has damaged the fabric of Nigerian politics; the alternative he presents is a moral altruism, which he elaborates via Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant."
Curiously, at the time of the conference the paper had a co-author, Tayo Eegunlusi (University of Ibadan), whom the published version does not seem to mention.
The doyen of the European New Right, the French philosopher, Alain de Benoist, thinks about "The Current Crisis of Democracy" in an article published in the latest issue of the journal, "Telos" (156, fall 2011: pp. 7-23). The article forms part of a special issue of the journal on "Democracy and Nations".
From the editor's introduction: "At stake are the limits of contemporary politics in the developed western democracies. Telos has elsewhere addressed political economy in China and the problems of Putinism in post-Communist Russia. The political dynamics of such non-democratic regimes can offer comparative examples, as could the tendencies toward neo-totalitarianism in Islamist radicalism. Yet what we can currently watch is the dysfunctionality of the most democratic systems, not their antipodes. What hampers political decision-making in democratic Europe and in the United States? How close to the brink does a democracy have to stumble in order to reach a decision?
"As Alain de Benoist writes at the conclusion of the opening essay in this issue, 'The current crisis of democracy is above all a crisis of politics,' which can only mean that we are facing systemic problems in democratic politics. For Benoist, democracy is buckling under the pressure of seemingly antithetical, but ultimately compatible, evil twins: 'In short, trapped between economics and morality, the ideology of the marketplace and the ideology of human rights, contemporary democracy is less and less democratic because it is less and less political. The economy is able to impose its law under the cover (and in the language) of rights.'"
Also included in this special issue is an article by Roland Olufemi Badru (University of Ibadan), "The Ontology of Political Decisionism, Negative Statecraft, and the Nigerian State: Exploring Moral Altruism in Politics" (pp. 47-60).
This essay was originally written for a conference section on "Political Decisionism and Statecraft in Africa" that I organized and chaired at the Eleventh Conference of Africanists of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in May 2008. It is always gratifying to see that papers written for SCIS events get published in well-regarded journals.
The editor writes: "In Badru's account, [Carl] Schmitt's concern with the sovereign and his maintenance of power points directly to issues of the personal power of the sovereign and its power-political consequences. This moral egoism, Badru argues, has damaged the fabric of Nigerian politics; the alternative he presents is a moral altruism, which he elaborates via Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant."
Curiously, at the time of the conference the paper had a co-author, Tayo Eegunlusi (University of Ibadan), whom the published version does not seem to mention.
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