The Politics of Responsibility / Chad Lavin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lavin, Chad, 1972- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Responsibility.

Political science--Philosophy.

Political science.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (200 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Urbana, Illinois : University of Illinois, [2008]

Summary:

Politics cannot function without responsibility, but there have been serious disagreements about how responsibility is to be understood and huge controversies about how it is to be distributed, rewarded, legislated, and enforced. The liberal notions of personal responsibility that have dominated political thinking in the West for more than a century are rooted in the familiar territory of individual will and causal blame, but these theories have been assailed as no longer adequate to explain or address the political demands of a global social structure. Informed by Marx, Foucault, and Butler, Chad Lavin argues for a "postliberal" theory of responsibility, formulating responsibility as a process that is anchored in a persistent ability to respond, not reproach. Lavin works this formulation through discussions of contemporary political issues such as globalization, police brutality, and abortion. Rather than assigning individual blame, postliberal responsibility challenges the supposed autonomy of individual subjects by taking structural arguments into account. Lavin concludes that a liberal concept of responsibility gives rise to a moralistic and oppressive approach to social problems, while a postliberal approach highlights a shared responsibility for developing collective solutions to systemic problems. Postliberal responsibility not only suggests more generous and democratic responses to social ills, it also allows us to theorize a greater range of issues that demand political response.

Contents:

Intro

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface: Responsibility after Liberalism

Part One: Theories of Response

1. Responsible Subjects

Cause and Response

Liberal Responsibility

From Many to One

Against Autonomy

Looking Forward

Postliberal, Not Illiberal

2. Making Marx Effective: Postliberal Agency in the Brumaire

Liberal, Structural, and Postliberal Agency

A Responsible Ontology

Making a Hero

Postliberal Performance

What Is an Intellectual?

Democratic Responsibility

3. Judith Butler’s Responsible Performance

Working Response

Third Verse, Same as the First

Inside and Out

Rehearsing the Future

The First Time as Tragedy

Postliberal Response

Part Two: Responses of Theory

4. Who Responds to Global Capital?

Contracts, Ltd.

One or Many Capitalisms

What Comes after the End of History?

Economic Revival

Beyond Contract

5. Postliberal Responsibility and the Death of Amadou Diallo

Preface

Privatizing Agency

Reclaiming Responsibility

Community Policing

6. Conceptions of Responsibility: On Health as a Choice

Private Victories, Public Defeats

Healthy Choice

Birth of an Author

Exceptional Responses

Conclusion: Forgetting to Forgive

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

Other Format:

Print version: Lavin, Chad The Politics of Responsibility

ISBN:

9780252055874

025205587X