Arts of the Political: New Openings for the Left

254 Pages·2013·0.998 MB·English

by  Ash Amin, Nigel Thrift

arts of the
POLITICAL

arts of the
POLITICAL
New OpeNiNgs fOr the Left
ash amin + nigel thrift
Duke University Press Durham + London 2013
© 2013 Duke University Library of Congress
Press. All rights reserved. Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Printed in the United States of Amin, Ash.
America on acid- free paper ♾ Arts of the political : new openings for
the left / Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift.
Designed by Courtney Leigh p. cm.
Baker and typeset in Arno Pro Includes bibliographical
by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. references and index.
isBN 978-0-8223-5387-4
 (cloth : alk. paper)
isBN 978-0-8223-5401-7
 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Political sociology. 2. Right and left
(Political science). 3. Social justice.
4. Social change. i. Thrift, N. J. ii. Title.
JA76.A474 2013 320.53—dc23
2012033719
contents
acknowledgments vii prologue ix
1 the grOuNds Of pOLitics 1
2 Leftist BegiNNiNgs 17
3 reiNveNtiNg the pOLiticAL 39
4 cONtempOrAry Leftist thOught 77
5 OrgANiziNg pOLitics 111
6 eurOcrAcy ANd its puBLics 135
7 Affective pOLitics 157
epilogue 187 notes 201 references 211 index 229

acknowledgments
We embarked on this project in 2005. It has taken some years to come to
fruition, and more could be written even on the eve of publication, for
the political terrain on which counter- currents can be forged never re-
mains still. Along the way a number of people have helped us to clarify
our arguments. We thank Jonathan Darling, Shari Daya, Michele Lan-
cione, and Helen Wilson for helping to source material for some of the
chapters; Laurent Frideres for so expertly finalizing the references; Peter
Wissoker for improving the legibility of the manuscript; and Courtney
Berger for guiding us through the various stages with tact and commit-
ment. Above all, we thank the two anonymous readers for critical but
always helpful suggestions to sharpen and clarify the argument.
Parts of chapter 7 are drawn from Nigel Thrift, Non-Representational
Theory: Space, Politics, Affect (London: Routledge, 2007), with permis-
sion of the publisher.

prologue
This is a book about how the Left, particularly in the West, can move for-
ward in the struggle to voice a politics of social equality and justice. But
it does not provide a manifesto, a template, or even a plan. The reason for
this seeming absence of guidance is straightforward. We believe that the
Left needs to invest much more effort in understanding both the politi-
cal and the process of politics when it seeks to steer toward a particular
outcome. Compared with times past, when the Left did indeed manage
to capture hearts and minds and found itself able to alter the course of
history for the many rather than just the few, too many of the forces that
profess to be of the Left take the political as given and, for that reason,
fail to disclose or enable new futures. That, at least, is the thesis of this
book. Thus, the book is about what it means to be “Left” once the politi-
cal is given the attention it deserves. Too often lately, the Left has been
unsuccessful because it has allowed itself to be constrained by a politics
that is grounded in habitual ways of thinking and acting—to the advan-
tage of conservative forces. The Left needs to repopulate the political
with new visions, new desires, and new modes of organization—that
is, with the three arts of imagination, persuasion, and fulfilment with-
out which a different future cannot be seen or desired and the present
is viscerally understood as closed to any kind of renewal. Only then will
the Left be able to make its case successfully for a fair and equal society.
How this case is made, however, is part of the problem. The orga-
nized Left—not just in the West, but the world over—has spent too
much time telling people what the future ought to be and too little time
thinking about ways in which that future can be brought about by like-
minded people who have been able to find one another. We believe that
new futures can be built only by trusting to the organizational capacities
and enthusiasm of these people to a much greater extent than has been