Book Review: John Kane and Haig Patapan (eds), Good Democratic Leadership: On Prudence and Judgment in Modern Democracies
| Author | James David Hodgson |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1478929916656565 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsPolitical Theory |
420 Political Studies Review 14 (3)
and resistance to the market for creating a better
social order in the current neoliberal context.
Although it is a work aimed at influencing the
UK Labour party and other left-leaning political
movements in Britain, much of the contents
might also have more general applicability
around the world. Overall, the book is well con-
structed and would serve as a useful guide for
academic scholars interested in the field of
political economy.
Rakesh Sasidharan
(Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916654619
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Revolutionary Subjectivity in Post-Marxist
Thought: Laclau, Negri, Badiou by Oliver
Harrison. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. 151pp., £60.00
(h/b), ISBN 9781472421333
In this short but dense text, Oliver Harrison
makes a compelling case for directly comparing
the works of Laclau, Negri and Badiou.
Recognising the limitations of the term ‘post-
Marxist’ (only Laclau has used it; Negri is
ambivalent about it and Badiou explicitly rejects
it), Harrison explores how their works have
departed from, but ultimately remain tied to,
Marxist problematics. Most of the book is
devoted to a close reading of Laclau, Negri and
Badiou’s most important works: it is convinc-
ingly argued that Negri has the closest relation-
ship with orthodox Marxism, Laclau has made
the most decisive break and Badiou’s account of
‘Communism’ is, unexpectedly, non-Marxist. In
the conclusion, Harrison shows that a defining
feature of post-Marxism is its rejection of
Hegelian dialectics and abandonment of Marx’s
philosophy of history. Although there is not
enough comparative analysis, Harrison does
identify some key similarities between the
thinkers, such as Negri and Badiou’s interest in
political organisation and Laclau and Badiou’s
shared concern with excluded political actors.
One of this book’s key contributions is in
simplifying and clarifying Laclau, Negri and
Badiou’s complex ideas and obscure prose.
However, this creates a significant problem:
it is not clear whether Harrison has
extrapolated, extended or even constructed
the theories of revolutionary subjectivity he
analyses. This is particularly problematic in
the case of Laclau who, far from providing
such a theory, has criticised other academics
for ‘r-r-revolutionary’ posturing. Ambiguities
such as this undermine Harrison’s argument
and lead him to the paradoxical conclusion
that things that do not exist (Laclau, Negri
and Badiou’s ‘theories of revolutionary sub-
jectivity’) are unsatisfying (which, in turn, is
not exactly surprising). Overall, Harrison’s
argument would be more coherent if he
clearly identified when he is going beyond
the three thinkers. The book also suffers
from not engaging enough with Lacanian
‘arch-Marxist’ Slavoj Žižek – who has been
largely omitted despite having actually
developed a unique perspective on revolu-
tionary subjectivity.
Notwithstanding these concerns, this book
offers an interesting analysis of the three think-
ers’ works as well as the relationship between
Marxism and post-Marxism. It also success-
fully demonstrates that the concept of ‘revolu-
tion’ is currently under-theorised within the
field of post-Marxism. It will be of greatest
interest to researchers working on theoretical
rather than empirical questions.
Bertie Vidgen
(University of Oxford)
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916654622
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Good Democratic Leadership: On Prudence
and Judgment in Modern Democracies by
John Kane and Haig Patapan (eds). Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2014. 251pp., £55.00
(h/b), ISBN 9780199683840
Political leadership, long overlooked in dem-
ocratic theory, has enjoyed renewed scholarly
attention in recent years, in no small part
thanks to John Kane and Haig Patapan’s pre-
vious work. This collection of essays contin-
ues their intellectual odyssey. Its purpose is to
confirm the importance of good democratic
leadership, what it entails and how it might be
fostered.
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