Abstract
Under communicative capitalism, should feminists be radical democrats? If radical democracy entails an emphasis on the multiplicity of political identities engaging in agonistic struggle within a framework of liberal democratic norms and institutions, as it does for Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985), then the answer is no. The changing conditions of signification accelerated by networked information and communication technologies decrease the viability of the production of symbolic identities as a means of left political struggle. At the same time, the tenacity of neoliberalism as an economic project renders allegedly democratic institutions barriers to significant political change. Together, these two aspects of communicative capitalism indicate the limits radical democracy places on left political thought and point to the importance of reinvigorating socialism as a left political project.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Citations
Barton, C. (2004). Global women’s movements at a crossroads. Socialism and Democracy, 18(1), 151ff.
Barton, C. (2005). Integrating feminist agendas. Development, 48 (4), 75–84.
Bulter, J., Laclau, E. & Žižek, S. (2000). Contingency, hegemony, universality. London: Verso.
Castells, M. (1997). The power of identity. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Chesler, P. (2006, February 24). The failure of feminism. The chronicle of higher education review, 52 (25), B12.
Davis, M. (2006). Planet of slums. London: Verso.
Dean, J. (2002). Publicity’s secret: How technoculture capitalizes on democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Dean, J. (2004). The networked empire: Communicative capitalism and the hope for politics. In P. A. Passavant & J. Dean (Eds.), Empire’s new clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri (pp. 265–288). New York: Routledge.
Dean, J. (2005). Communicative capitalism: Circulation and the foreclosure of politics. Cultural Politics, 1 (1), 51–74.
Dean, J., Anderson, J., & Lovink, G. (Eds.). (2006). Reformatting politics: Networked communication and global civil society. New York: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 87–104). Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hennessy, R. (2000). Profit and pleasure: Sexual identities in late capitalism. New York: Routledge.
Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London: Verso.
Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy. London: Verso.
Lemke, T. (2002). Foucault, governmentality, and critique. Rethinking Marxism, 14 (3), 49–64.
Marres, N. (2006). Net-work is format work: Issue networks and the sites of civil society politics. In J. Dean, J. Anderson, & G. Lovink (Eds.), Reformatting politics. New York: Routledge.
Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. New York: Routledge.
Murdock, D. E (2003). Neoliberalism, gender, and development: Institutionalizing ‘post-feminism’ in Medellin, Columbia. Women’s Studies Quarterly, 31(3), 129ff.
Passavant, P. A. (2005). The strong neoliberal state: Crime, consumption, governance. Theory and Event, 8 (3).
Saad-Fiho, A. & Johnston, D. (Eds.). (2005). Neoliberalism: A critical reader. London: Pluto Press.
Sassen, S. (1998). Globalization and its discontents. New York: New Press.
Segal, L. (1999). Why feminism? New York: Columbia University Press.
Sen, G. (2005). Neolibs, neocons, and gender justice: Lessons from global negotiations. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Occasional Paper Number 9. Retrieved August 24, 2006 from http://www.unrisd.org/UNRISD/website/document.nsf/ab82a6805_79_7_76018025_6b4f005dalab/15e6ea635e8a955bc12570b500357029/$FILE/OP9pdf.pdf.
Thas, A. M. K. (2005). Paddling in circles while the waters rise: Gender issues in ICTs and poverty reduction. Retrieved August 24, 2006 from http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?w=r&x=91782.
Žižek, S. (1999). The ticklish subject. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2000). The fragile absolute. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2002). Afterword: Lenin’s choice. In S. Žižek, (Ed.), Revolution at the gates. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2003). The puppet and the dwarf. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2004). Iraq: The borrowed kettle. London: Verso.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2007 Jodi Dean
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dean, J. (2007). Feminism, Communicative Capitalism, and the Inadequacies of Radical Democracy. In: Dahlberg, L., Siapera, E. (eds) Radical Democracy and the Internet. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230592469_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230592469_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-28315-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-59246-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)