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This book provides a comprehensive review of the relationship between utopia and democracy, challenging the tendency in Western scholarship to assume that an ideal society is inherently democratic. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book covers an extensive range of historical periods and genres, and places emphasis on an understudied issue in the field, namely the role of Eastern and Central Europe in the study of utopianism. The various chapters reflect on the frequently overlooked role utopian thought plays in the development of democratic political structures, despite the fact that the history of classical utopianism demonstrates a multitude of non-democratic patterns. With contributions from political theory, history, cultural and literary studies, the volume explores a range of contexts, demonstrating how utopias offer both a critique and an inspiration for the evolution of democratic societies.
List of contents
Part I. Forging New Ways Forward: Rethinking the Relationship between Utopia and Democracy.- 1. Utopia and Democracy: Is There a Way Forward?.- 2. Utopian versus Utopian. The Ambivalence of Utopia and the Oxymoron of Utopic Democracy.- 3. A Utopia of Fear? The Reappraisal of Utopian Thought in Contemporary Realist Political Theory.- 4. Dreams of a Final Normative Theory: An Essay on the Changing Role of Utopia in Contemporary Political Thought.- Part. II. Utopia(s) in Praxis: Contexts, Projects, Communities.- 5. Aristotle On Citizenship, Schol And Democracy.- 6. Uchronia as the Foundation of Utopia.- 7. Outlines of an American Conservative Utopia: The Case of Russell Kirk.- 8. The Only Real Democracy is Direct Democracy : An Exploration of the Concept of Democracy in Two Italian Contemporary Utopian Communities.- Part. III. Between East and West: Utopia and Democracy in Eastern/Central Europe.- 9. Democracy and Leadership in Nineteenth Century Hungarian Utopian Literature.- 10. Utopia and Nationalism in Pre-War Yugoslavia.- 11. The phenomenon of New Soviet Man: Utopian Aspirations of Bolsheviks and Their Subsequent Downfall.- 12. Democratic Futures, Utopia and the Literary Imagination of Contemporary Ukraine.
About the author
Zsolt Czigányik is the lead scholar of the 'Democracy in East Central European Utopianism' research group at Central European University funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and an Associate Professor at ELTE University, Budapest. He published Utopia Between East and West in Hungarian Literature with Palgrave Macmillan in 2023.
Iva Dimovska holds a PhD from Central European University's Gender Studies Department. Currently, she is a Gerda Henkel Postdoctoral Fellow in the 'Democracy in East Central European Utopianism' research group at CEU's Democracy Institute in Budapest. She is also a member of the Utopian Studies Society Steering Committee.
Summary
This book provides a comprehensive review of the relationship between utopia and democracy, challenging the tendency in Western scholarship to assume that an ideal society is inherently democratic. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book covers an extensive range of historical periods and genres, and places emphasis on an understudied issue in the field, namely the role of Eastern and Central Europe in the study of utopianism. The various chapters reflect on the frequently overlooked role utopian thought plays in the development of democratic political structures, despite the fact that the history of classical utopianism demonstrates a multitude of non-democratic patterns. With contributions from political theory, history, cultural and literary studies, the volume explores a range of contexts, demonstrating how utopias offer both a critique and an inspiration for the evolution of democratic societies.
