Europe and the political: from axiological monism to pluralistic dialogism

ABSTRACT

“The political” represents a moment in which actors recognise autonomy and equality as constitutive values in the agonistic search for appropriate open-ended political outcomes. The tutelary, pedagogical and disciplinary practices of the depoliticised European Union (EU) undermine the foundations of equality in diplomatic and political engagement between continental actors. The relationship becomes axiological, where issues are deemed to have been resolved through some sort of anterior pre-political arrangement. This is a type of ahistorical political monism that ultimately claims to speak for all of Europe. The return of “the political” allows a more generous and pluralistic politics to emerge based on genuine dialogical foundations in which self and other engage as equals and are mutually transformed by that engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Monism
• finalité
• the political
• dialogism
• European Union
• Russia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent and an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He has published widely on Soviet, Russian and post-communist affairs. Recent books include The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism, and the Medvedev Succession (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Putin and the Oligarch: The Khodorkovsky – Yukos Affair (I. B. Tauris, 2014), Putin Redux: Power and Contradiction in Contemporary Russia (Routledge, 2014) and Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (I. B. Tauris, 2016).

Notes

1. This article was originally conceived as part of a project on ‘The Politics and “The Political” of the Eastern Partnership Initiative: Re-shaping the Agenda’, directed by Professor Elena Korosteleva. I would like to thank her, as well as my other colleagues at the University of Kent, Eske Van Gils and Igor Merheim-Eyre, for their support, help and comments.