Abstract

DUARTE, André de Macedo. Democracy in crisis: biopolitics and neoliberal government of populations. Educação e Filosofia [online]. 2019, vol.33, n.68, pp.527-562.  Epub Aug 30, 2021. ISSN 1982-596X.  https://doi.org/10.14393/revedfil.v33n68a2019-51961.

This text discusses the hypothesis that the crisis of contemporary democracy relates to two distinct political phenomena, however correlated, analyzed thru Michel Foucault’s concepts about biopolitics and neoliberalism: a) the ascending dissemination of acts and discourses of hate, violence and prejudgment against vulnerable populations, according to the biopolitical logics of protecting the life of some at the expense of exposing the life of others to death; b) the dissemination of neoliberal policies to administrate the life of vulnerable populations. I argue that both phenomena seem to imply the paradox of a democracy without the demos, in the sense of the devaluation of collective political struggles for equal rights and for better life conditions. At the conclusion, it is suggested that the reinvention of democracy requires rethinking the power of the demos in the sense of re-politicizing the political power of social categories subjected to historical process that render them vulnerable.

Keywords : Crisis of democracy; Biopolitics; Neoliberalism; Foucault; Butler.

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