Beyond Hegemony
Towards a New Philosophy of Political Legitimacy
Darrow Schecter(Author)
Manchester University Press
Published on 1. April 2005
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-7190-6088-5 (ISBN)
Description
Since the Enlightenment, liberal democrat governments in Europe and North America have been compelled to secure the legitimacy of their authority by constructing rational states whose rationality is based on modern forms of law. The first serious challenge to liberal democratic practices of legal legitimacy comes in Marx's early writings on Rousseau and Hegel. Marx discovers the limits of formal legal equality that does not address substantive relations of inequality in the workplace and in many other spheres of social life.
Beyond Hegemony investigates the authoritarianism and breakdown of those state socialist governments in Russia and elsewhere which claim to put Marx's ideas on democracy and equality into practice. The book explains that although many aspects of Marx's critique are still valid today, his ideas need to be supplemented by the contributions to social theory made by Nietzsche, Foucault, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as well as the libertarian socialism of G.D.H. Cole. What emerges is a new theory of political legitimacy which indicates how it is possible to move beyond liberal democracy whilst avoiding the authoritarian turn of state socialism.
Schecter points out the weaknesses of the many extra-legal accounts of non-formal legitimacy now on offer, such as those based on friendship and identity. He then argues that the first step beyond hegemony depends on the discovery of forms of legitimate legality and demonstrates why the conditions of legitimate law can be identified. -- .
Beyond Hegemony investigates the authoritarianism and breakdown of those state socialist governments in Russia and elsewhere which claim to put Marx's ideas on democracy and equality into practice. The book explains that although many aspects of Marx's critique are still valid today, his ideas need to be supplemented by the contributions to social theory made by Nietzsche, Foucault, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as well as the libertarian socialism of G.D.H. Cole. What emerges is a new theory of political legitimacy which indicates how it is possible to move beyond liberal democracy whilst avoiding the authoritarian turn of state socialism.
Schecter points out the weaknesses of the many extra-legal accounts of non-formal legitimacy now on offer, such as those based on friendship and identity. He then argues that the first step beyond hegemony depends on the discovery of forms of legitimate legality and demonstrates why the conditions of legitimate law can be identified. -- .
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-7190-6088-5 (9780719060885)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2013
1st Edition
Manchester University Press
€26.49
Available for download
Person
Darrow Schecter is Professor in Critical Theory and Modern European History at the University of Sussex
Content
Introduction; 1. Liberalism and discourses of legality: Limiting human agency in the name ofnegative liberty; 2. Democracy and discourses of legitimacy: Liberating human agency from liberal legal form; 3. Inside the liberal machine; 4. Idealism, legality and reconciliation with external nature; 5. Materialism, legitimacy and reconciliation with human nature; Conclusion; Index