Undoing the Demos

Resumen del libro

Neoliberal rationality'ubiquitous today in statecraft and the workplace, in jurisprudence, education, and culture'remakes everything and everyone in the image of homo oeconomicus. What happens when this rationality transposes the constituent elements of democracy into an economic register? In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition; and popular sovereignty grows incoherent. Liberal democratic practices may not survive these transformations. Radical democratic dreams may not either.In an original and compelling argument, Brown explains how and why neoliberal reason undoes the political form and political imaginary it falsely promises to secure and reinvigorate. Through meticulous analyses of neoliberalized law, political practices, governance, and education, she charts the new common sense. Undoing the Demos makes clear that for democracy to have a future, it must become an object of struggle and rethinking.

Biografía del autor

Wendy Brown (California, 1955) es activista, teórica política y profesora de Ciencias Políticas en la Universidad de Berkeley. Ha desarrollado una teoría crítica de la racionalidad neoliberal, extendiendo el pensamiento de Foucault y atendiendo sus efectos sobre la educación, las leyes, la gobernanza y los principios básicos de las instituciones democráticas. Su trabajo se ha traducido a más de veinte idiomas. Entre sus títulos recientes destacan: El pueblo sin atributos, Estados amurallados, soberanía en declive y La política fuera de la historia. Recientemente ha participado también en el volumen colectivo El síntoma Trump. Qué hacer ante la ola reaccionaria.