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by Alexandros Kioupkiolis (Author)
Alexandros Kioupkiolis re-conceptualises the common in tandem with the political. By engaging with key thinkers of community and the commons, including Nancy, Ostrom, Hardt and Negri, he harnesses the political thrust of a radical democratic politics of solidarity, equality and collective self-organisation. He calls into play poststructuralist conceptions of agonism and hegemony, put forward by thinkers such as Mouffe and Laclau, to remedy the failure of existing theories of the commons to address power relations and division.
Front Jacket
Introduces agonistic theory and hegemony in contemporary debates on the common By engaging with key thinkers of community and the commons, from Jean-Luc Nancy and Elinor Ostrom, to Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, this book harnesses the political thrust of a radical democratic politics of solidarity, equality and collective self-organization. Recognising that such theories of the commons fail to adequately address power relations and division, Alexandros Kioupkiolis calls into play post-structuralist conceptions of agonism and hegemony in the work of Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, among others, to remedy these shortcomings. Drawing on present-day examples of athe politics of the common(s), including the governance of the digital commons, recent democratic mobiliszations, such as the Occupy movements, and citizens' municipal platforms of self-governance, Kioupkiolis offers a unique contribution to the re-conceptualisation of the common in tandem with the political. An effective politics of the common(s) should be combined with the politics of hegemony in order to advance another social configuration beyond state and capital by way of assembling a massive political front. But, in the spirit of contemporary collective action, the strategy of hegemony should be transfigured by striking an imbalance between vertical structures and horizontal autonomy in favour of the common. Alexandros Kioupkiolis is an Assistant Professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is the author of several monographs, including Freedom After the Critique of Foundations: Marx, Liberalism and Agonistic Autonomy (2012).
Author Biography
Alex Kioupkiolis is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Political Theory in the School of Political Sciences at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research focuses on contemporary social movements, radical democracy, the commons, and alternative conceptions of politics. He is the author of Freedom After the Critique of Foundations: Marx, Liberalism and Agonistic Autonomy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and the principal investigator of the 2017-2020 international research project Heteropolitics (ERC COG 2016), which enquires into civic self-organisation, the commons and municipalist processes in the European South.
