CFP: Democratic Mutations: Between Power Mechanisms and Emergent Forms of Political Care

The contemporary political scenario is marked by extremism and the increasing vulnerability of democratic systems. This volume seeks to explore potential transformations of political organisation, which is deeply imbued with the Leviathanic tendencies of the modern state. Hence, there has been growing interest in recent decades regarding the mutation and coexistence of biopolitics and thanatopolitics within state structures. This analysis coincides with the search for alternatives that might address the latent Leviathanic mechanisms of the modern state. These factors illuminate the paradox in which contemporary democratic institutions find themselves: they contain a constitutive void while facing various forms of extremism that traditional political language can no longer adequately address.

Within this context, this book explores alternatives based on community mechanisms rather than inclusive exclusion and neoliberal dispositifs. The community approach is essential as we propose to challenge the individualistic paradigm that has undermined social relations. However, we also intend to transcend traditional dichotomies, such as communism-capitalism, by exploring new forms of organisation that move beyond the same ideological extremes that have led us to our current situation.

Keywords: communitarian democracy, biopolitics, thanatopolitics, Leviathanic state, contemporary extremisms, immunization paradigm, political institutions