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Uncovering the neglected theories of the council system in the 20th century
This book examines the historical emergence of the council system in Russia and Germany by the end of the First World War, reconstructing the intellectual history of the council democracy in 20th century political theory, and providing in-depth analysis of council democracy in the political thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort and Hannah Arendt.
Popp-Madsen argues that council democracy can productively be interpreted through the prism of constituent power: the form-giving power of the people to decide on their own institutional forms of political co-existence. Whereas other interpreters of constituent power claim an unbridgeable gap between constituent power and constituted power, this book asserts that council democracy discloses a historically grounded way of institutionalising the constituent power. Council democracy, in this interpretation, becomes a way of controlling the constituent power without completely exhausting it, thereby giving the citizenry continual access to the powers of self-transformation, co-creation and constituent freedom.
Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why Council Democracy, why Now?
Chapter 1: The Historical Councils in 20th Century Europe
Chapter 2: Political Theory of Council Democracy from Bakunin to Luxemburg
Chapter 3: Institutionalising the Instituting Power? Castoriadis and the Councils
Chapter 4: Self-Limitation and Democracy: Lefort's Model of Council Democracy
Chapter 5: Between Liberal Constitutionalism and Permanent Revolution: Arendt's Republic of Councils
Chapter 6: The Politics of Form: Council Democracy between Transformatory Politics and Political Form
Conclusion: Council Democracy and Contemporary Movements of Occupation
Bibliography
Endnotes
About the author
Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. He has contributed a chapter to
Council Democracy: Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics (edited by James Muldoon, Routledge, 2018) and has published a number of journal articles in Danish, German and English.
