Online First – Peter Sloterdijk: ‘On Pseudonymous Politics’
Deconstructed Rose by Lilje, from fineartamerica.com
We are delighted to publish a new, original essay by world-famous philosopher Peter Sloterdijk in New Perspectives.
- The ESSAY is available for FREE download here
- A FORUM of RESPONSES to the article is available for FREE download here
‘On Pseudonymous Politics: Regarding Implicit and Explicit Misconceptions of Democracy’ is an intervention into the state of democracy (and its discontents) today and a rejoinder to some of those discontents. Sloterdijk grounds his argument in extensive historical analysis of the ‘pseudonymous’ condition of democracy and identifies four noms de guerre: Oligocracy, Fiscocracy, Mobocracy and Phobocracy.
This essay is a significant intervention into debates in contemporary politics in the context of ‘post-truth’, populism (on the left and right) and the battle for liberal democracy in the Western world and beyond. It treads deliberately onto the turf of Politics and International Relations and is a challenge to scholars in our field.
New Perspectives will therefore also be publishing a collection of responses to Sloterdijk’s article by IR scholars: Claudia Aradau, Friedrich Kratochwil, Barry J Ryan, Sassan Gholiagha and Benjamin Tallis. We also encourage the submission of further responses and articles on related matters in order to continue the conversation.
The essay text is a version of the ‘Cardiff Lecture’ delivered by Peter Sloterdijk as the keynote address for the European International Studies Association (EISA) European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), Cardiff University, Wales, on 7 June 2017 – it was not peer reviewed, but is peer responded. The Cardiff Lecture was made possible by the initiative and perseverance of Christian Bueger and the support – financial and otherwise – of Cardiff University and the Learned Society of Wales, as well as the financial support of the Institute of International Relations Prague, the latter of which paid for the translation of the text from the original German. This translation was made in record time, with no detriment to quality, by Victoria Stiles, who is contactable at v.stiles.education@gmail.com. Additional bibliographical assistance was provided in fine fashion by David Steiner, an intern at the Institute of International Relations Prague.
Benjamin Tallis
Editor-in-Chief, New Perspectives