Decolonizing Democracy

Reviews / Votes

Sanin-Restrepo seeks to turn the tables on the operations of power in our world; far from accepting the dominance of the oppressive system of state capitalism due to its very tangible presence, he seeks to point out the tangibility of that which opposes it and which can fight its fire with an immanent fire of its own. * Law, Culture & Humanities * Decolonizing Democracy is a radical and provocative text...and one hopes that Sanin-Restrepo will continue to explore the philosophical vistas unto which it has opened a window. * Constellations, An International Journal of Democratic and Critical Theory * Sanin Restrepo?s work gives us a thoughtful and innovative account of how democracy - "as the only conceivable space of politics" - is occluded by coloniality. For those interested in the decolonial perspective, this book is of paramount importance and a long-awaited contribution which introduces democracy to the debate. -- Fernanda Frizzo Bragato, Professor of Human Rights and Coordinator of the Law Graduate Program at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil. Sanin-Restrepo argues that the key to a better, non-culturalist notion of difference lies not in the types of atoms that make up language/society, but in their arrangement. A more hopeful and conscious politics requires integration into a whole in which feedback creates differentiation, with all parts affecting one another. Domination seeks to turn our linguistic-performative political powers into a simple feed-forward mechanism. The latter gives us simulated democracy. In this fascinating book Sanin-Restrepo invites us to rise against it, like Neo and Trinity do in The Matrix. -- Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Reader in Law and Political Philosophy, Birkbeck College, University of London