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Nations and Democracy - New Theoretical Perspectives (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,372
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Nations and Democracy - New Theoretical Perspectives (Paperback)
Series: Routledge Advances in Democratic Theory
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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A figure of enduring ingenuity, the nation has for centuries played
a part on the socio-political stage. Whether centre stage or
background scenery, it has featured in violent tragedies,
revolutionary drama and nostalgic fable. Today, the nation is cast
simultaneously in the roles of villain and hero. While it is
renounced by those advocating trans-national, post-national and
cosmopolitan forms of belonging, it has lately also been asserted
as the solution to various social failures in liberal democracies.
This appears to leave us with two alternatives: to jettison the
nation in order to move towards a less parochial world, a world in
which new forms of belonging underpin more inclusive politics. Or
to celebrate the nation as way of ensuring the social cement that
can unite a diverse society. Using the ideas of Wittgenstein and
Lacan, Amanda Machin expertly explains that the overlapping and
conflicting language games of the nation produce it as an object of
desire in an uncertain world. The nation is not a pre-political
thing but a matter of persistent political contestation and
coalition. She reveals that the nation still has a vital part to
play in democratic politics, but that this role is one of
improvisation. While they endure as tools of emancipatory promise,
nations nonetheless remain potential categories of violent
exclusion. They cannot be pinned down as easily as anti-national
and pro-national alternatives suggest. It is precisely the
indeterminacy of the nation that gives it ongoing importance for
democracy today. Providing an urgent riposte to dominant accounts,
this thought provoking and highly original account demands a
re-politicisation of the nation. This book will appeal to those
engaged in theory and empirical research on nations and nationalism
and the question of their link to democracy in a changing world, as
well as those interested in psychoanalysis and Wittgenstein.
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