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Syllabus

Introduction

Radical democracy refers to aspirations, ideas and practices that aim or embody an attempt to re/uncover the roots of what democracy is or should be. It takes seriously the claim that “democracy – [is] a process in permanent radicalization of itself” (Kothari et al., 2019, xxi). As such, the term is better conceived as a project of radicalizing or deepening democracy, rather than a free-standing and exhaustive substitute to liberal democracy. Since the collapse of the socialist alternative and its related imaginaries, radical democracy has come to best represent the multitude of democratic experiments and manifestations that can be found all over the world. Those movements have often departed from the class-based struggle of classical Marxism in order to embrace a multiplicity of fights against a variety of forms of domination, and to work towards a more equal and just future without the teleological end-point of communism (Loyd and Little, 2009). The theoretical literature is inhabited by two major strands. One is associated with deliberative democracy, and relies on enhancing the public exchange of reasons to deepen democracy. The second strand, influenced by post-structuralist thought, affirms the ineradicability of power and conflict and endeavors to mobilize democratic power to fight dominative forces. We take an expansive view of radical democracy and include the two strands, as well as other theories that seek to strengthen democracy. We also pay particular attention to practices that do the same, and aim to thread both theory and practice in our exploration of the subject.