| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines the notion of democracy not as a straightforward political process
for decision-making, but as a type of dialogue. One of the main reasons for choosing this
particular approach is to reveal the conditions of genuine democratic politics. A politics
built on the image of people who can express themselves without fear and are free of
obligation of sameness. Therefore, this thesis excavates the assumptions and complex
relations of values by virtue of which democracy can be produced, reproduced and
validated. It approaches Bakhtin’s idea of dialogue as an important but neglected concept
in democratic studies and explores what dialogue is for Bakhtin, showing how his general
theory of language and meaning not only implicates particular concepts of democracy
such as addresser/ruler and addressee/ruled, but also reveals the conditions of freedom
that is necessary to produce the momentum towards the enabling practices of political
life. With respect to these, it discusses how Bakhtin’s idea of dialogue anticipates
normative concerns that are central to contemporary democratic theory: Is it possible to
establish a balance between unity and diversity or between the universal and the particular
in a way that promotes recognition of differences as an instrument of democratic rule?
Or, is it possible to prevent the inevitable tension between constituting a regulatory
framework for political participation (which inevitably posits some fixity and exclusion)
and celebrating heteroglossia? In order to address these issues, this thesis considers
politics not only as a united body, but also a heteroglossic and multivoiced body. | en_US |
