The present dissertation deals with the relationship between democracy and agonism. It attempts to defend the idea that certain problematic aspects of contemporary liberal democracies are not due to their origin primarily in the change of social conditions (the massification of democracy, the growth of complexity in modern societies), that made the original democratic promises unrealizable, but in certain oblivion of the agon. The agon is understood as a constitutive feature of democratic society and its oblivion is seen not to be accidental. To defend this proposition I focuse on an interpretation of the dialogue between populist republicanism (Machiavelli) and elitist republicanism (Guicciardini). This dialogue is usually understood as one of the sources of modern democratic tradition. I try to explain that in Machiavelli's political theory two notions of agonism are present - pragmatic agon that sees conflict as a basis of social cohesion and strategic agon that is described as a ferocious egalitarianism employed by the second class citizens in order to gain equality from the first class citizens. These two forms of agonism are explained to form the axis of Machiavelli's notion of the political and also of a free republic and democracy. Guicciardini's elitist republicanism is shown to stand in opposition...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:322527 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Bíba, Jan |
| Contributors | Znoj, Milan, Barša, Pavel, Velek, Josef |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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