For a leftist appropriation of the European legacy

Abstract

This article focuses on Jacques Ranciére ‘s opposition between the two facets of the political: the ‘police’ (maintaining social order) and politiciza‐tion proper (in which an excluded element—demos, ‘le troisiéme état, a dissident Forum—asserts itself as the immediate embodiment of the Whole of Society). After analysing different modalities of the ‘repression’ of this gesture of politicization (from arch‐politics to today's postmodern post‐political ‘identity‐politics ‘), the article proposes a reading of the disintegration of Eastern European Socialism as a moment of authentic politicization, and then proceeds to oppose globalization and universalization: universalization is the key moment of the political ‘short‐circuit’ between the Whole and its excluded Part, while globalization (the newly emerging ‘post‐political’ global order) presents perhaps the strongest threat to politics proper yet.