Inventions of politics / As invenções da política: sobre a existência da política e suas transformações
AUTOR(ES)
José Correa Leite Jr
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO
2005
RESUMO
The present thesis studies the current transformations of the statute of politics that are underway. Therefore, it develops an interdisciplinary study, aiming at elucidating the conditions that enabled, in certain moments of the trajectory of human kind, the emergence, flourishing and suppression of relations that can be considered politic relations. Hence, it establishes a base: in each period formulates, from its anthropologic conceptions, what considers as human possibilities or limits for political action. To prove this hypothesis, the thesis analyzes the evolution of the conceptions of nature and/or human condition in modernity and how they are related to the different discourses on politics. The research discusses four key moments in the history of political practices: a) the preceding period to the formation of leaderships and the meaning of the formation of the State. It shows that, with the passage from nomadic to sedentary life, living conditions of human kind suffered a worsening, and that humans lost their autonomy from the members of the community, as well as the lost, for the huge majority, of their capacity of interfering in the course of their social group. It questions, the meaning that is usually given to the formation of civilization, showing that it represented the suppression of wisdoms and practices that prevented the formation of power. 2) The Greek invention of politics. It shows that the inhabitants of Greeks poleis invented a new social practice crystallized into specific institutions. In these ones, the power was shared within a community of citizens. As a result of this experience, the Greeks produced new ways of knowledge, a new vision of the world, systematized in philosophy. This political practice succumbed, as the axis of ancient civilization moved from poleis to empires and the system of fragmented sovereignties of the Middle Ages. 3) The modern invention of politics. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, the idea that human beings can try to mould their personal destiny, modify institutions, contain the unjustices and being actors of their own destiny, grows strongly, leading to the American and French Revolution. In the scenario of modern territorial state, defined by sovereignty, we witness the irruption of the constituent power of masses in revolutionary processes, the rescue and redefinition of citizenship and the incorporation of democratic practices by liberal regimes, which will increasingly mark the development of capitalistic society. This is based on the comprehension of the universe and humanity that is offered by experimental science. A contradictory dynamics is established, by the industrial capitalism, between the capitalistic economic sphere, which tries to impose its own legality in every field, and the political sphere, which tries to contain the totalizing vocation of the process of capital accumulation. 4) the crisis of modern politics, analyzing the tendencies leading to suppression of politics, by the undermine basis of the national state, as well as by the rise of the tendencies of mechanization and increasing systemic determination of human existence. Undertaken this diagnosis, we finalize trying to trail possible tendencies leading to a new invention of politics. Registering a series of new political phenomena, that go beyond national frameworks and shape a movement for global justice, we focus on World Social Forum, that appears as the exemplar institution of a new kind of political practices, organized in a very different way from the former existing institutions: horizontal international organization, formation of affinity networks and groups, rejection of representation, valorization of diversity. We find new coordinates of theoretical reflection supporting these practices. And we show how they do refer to what some analysts have called global civil society, a controversial category, but useful to show those new links that have been established and how they have a considerable effect on political actions of a new kind.
ASSUNTO(S)
politics ciência política invenções da política política inventions of politics ciencias sociais aplicadas
