Academic literature on the topic 'Arendt, Hannah, 1906-1975 – Contributions in political science'

AbstractThis essay provides an overview of the life and theoretical concerns of Hannah Arendt. It traces the way her experience as a German Jew in the 1930s informed her analysis of totalitarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism and her idea of the “banality of evil” in Eichmann in Jerusalem. The essay takes issue with those of Arendt's critics who detect a lack of “love of the Jewish people” in her writing. It also traces the way Arendt's encounter with totalitarian evil led to a deeper questioning of the anti-democratic impulses in the Western tradition of political thought—a questioning that finds its fullest articulation in The Human Condition and On Revolution. Throughout, my concern is to highlight Arendt's contribution to thinking “the political” in a way friendly to the basic phenomenon of human plurality. I also highlight her recovery and extension of the main themes of the civic republican tradition.

Although social work engagement with Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) has been meagre, it has been recently suggested that her conceptualisations are significant for the profession. This article seeks to problematise the presentation of Arendt to a social work readership, highlighting the failure to adequately historicise her work. In terms of her ideas, there is much to gain in examining this intellectual’s prolific and often controversial contributions, and seven dimensions are identified as significant for the times in which we live. Nevertheless, there are still major criticisms which can be levelled at her core conceptualisations. The article dwells on Arendt’s theorisation of the ‘private’, the ‘public’ and the ‘social’, and it is suggested that she is unaligned with sociologically informed theorisation underpinning critical and radical social work.

Resumo Quando se faz referências às relações entre Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) e Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) a menção sempre lembrada é a da amizade. Nas homenagens prestadas à Hannah Arendt por ocasião de sua morte, o filósofo Hans Jonas - amigo de Arendt desde o tempo que foram colegas na universidade em Marburg e alunos de Heidegger - destacou sua vocação para a amizade. Segundo ele, o que a movia era o Eros da amizade (Eros der Freundschaft). No círculo dos amigos mais próximos, incluía-se Walter Benjamin, com quem convivera no exílio em Paris entre os anos 1936 e 1940. E a amizade como pensada e cultivada na prática pelos dois pensadores situava-se no centro de suas vidas, como laço afetivo e visão de mundo. Este paper aborda a relação entre Arendt e Benjamin em dois âmbitos: a amizade, construída na situação de filósofos judeus-alemães refugiados em Paris, e as afinidades eletivas na concepção da história e da modernidade.

The relationship between identity and national consciousness is one of the important issues, not only, of the sociology of identity but of the overall opinion of the social sciences. This scientific question has been insufficiently researched in the sociological thought of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with this paper we are trying to actualize it. Aware of theoretical-methodological and conceptual-logical difficulties related to the research problem, we considered that in the first part of the paper we make some theoretical-methodological notes on the problems in studying this phenomenon, in order to, above all, eliminate conceptual-logical dilemmas. The use of terms and their meaning in sociology and other social sciences is a very important theoretical and methodological issue. The question justifiably arises whether we can adequately name and explain some of the “character traits” of the contemporary national identity of the Bosniak nation that we want to talk about in this paper with classical, generally accepted terms, identity, consciousness, self-awareness, shame or shame, self-shame. Another important theoretical issue of the relationship between identity and consciousness in our case, the relationship between the national consciousness of Bosniaks and their overall socio-historical identity is the dialectical relationship between individual and collective consciousness, ie. the extent to which the national consciousness of an individual or a particular national group, political, cultural, educational, age, etc., is contrary to generally accepted national values and norms. One of the important factors of national consciousness is the culture of remembrance. What does it look like for Bosniaks? More specifically, in this paper we problematize the influence of “prejudicial historiography” on the development of the culture of memory in the direction of oblivion or memory. What to remember, and why to remember. Memory is part of our identity. The phrase, not to deal with the past but to turn to the future, is impossible. How to project the future and not analyze the past. On the basis of what, what social facts? Why the world remembers the crimes of the Nazis, why the memory of the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jews is being renewed. Which is why Bosniaks would not remember and renew the memory of the genocides committed against them. Due to the Bosniak memory of genocide, it is possible that the perpetrators of genocide are celebrated as national heroes and their atrocities as a national liberation struggle. Why is the history of literature and art, political history and all other histories studied in all nations and nations. Why don't European kingdoms give up their own, queens and kings, princesses and princes. These and other theoretical-methodological questions have served us to use comparative analysis to show specific forms of self-esteem among Bosniaks today. The concrete socio-historical examples we cite fully confirm our hypothesis. Here are a few of these examples. Our eastern neighbors invented their epic hero Marko Kraljevic (Ottoman vassal and soldier, killed as a “Turkish” soldier in the fight against Christian soldiers in Bulgaria) who killed the fictional Musa Kesedzija, invented victory on the field of Kosovo, and Bosniaks forgot the real Bosniak epic heroes , brothers Mujo and Halil Hrnjic, Tala od Orašac, Mustaj-beg Lički and others, who defended Bosniaks from persecution and ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian Krajina. Dozens of schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been named after the Serbian language reformer, the Serb Vuk Stefanović Karađić (1787-1864), who was born in the village of Tršić near Loznica, Republic of Serbia. Uskufije (1601 / 1602.-?), Born in Dobrinja near Tuzla. Two important guslars and narrators of epic folk songs, Filip Višnjić (1767-1834) and Avdo Medjedović (1875-1953), are unequally present in the memory and symbolic content of the national groups to which they belong, even if the difference in quality is on the side of the almost forgotten. Avdo Medjedovic, the “Balkan Homer”, is known at Harvard University, but very little is known in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And while we learned everything about the murderer Gavril Princip, enlightened by the “logic of an idea” (Hannah Arendt) symbolizing him as a “national hero”, we knew nothing, nor should we have known, about Muhamed Hadžijamaković, a Bosnian patriot and legal soldier, he did not kill a single pregnant woman , a fighter in the Bosnian Army who fought against the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878. When it comes to World War II and the fight against fascism are full of hero stories. For one example, we will take Srebrenica, the place of genocidal suffering of Bosniaks. Before the war against Bosnian society and the state 1992-1995. in Srebrenica, the elementary school was called Mihajlo Bjelakovic, a partisan, born in Vidrići near Sokolac. Died in Srebrenica in 1944. The high school in Srebrenica was named Midhat Hacam, a partisan born in the vicinity of Vares. It is not a problem that these two educational institutions were named after two anti-fascists, whose individual work is not known except that they died. None of them were from Srebrenica. That's not a problem either. Then what is it. In the collective memory of Bosniaks. Until recently, the name of the two Srebrenica benefactors and heroes who saved 3,500 Srebrenica Serbs from the Ustasha massacre in 1942, who were imprisoned by the Ustashas in the camp, has not been recorded. These are Ali (Jusuf) efendi Klančević (1888-1952) and his son Nazif Klančević (1910-1975). Nothing was said about them as anti-fascists, most likely that Alija eff. Klančević was an imam-hodža, his work is valued according to Andrić's “logic” as a work that cannot “be the subject of our work” In charity, humanitarian work, but also courage, sacrifice, direct participation in the fight for defense, the strongest Bosniaks do not lag behind Bosniaks, but just like Bosniaks, they are not symbolically represented in the public space of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We had the opportunity to learn about the partisan Marija Bursać and many others, but why the name Ifaket-hanuma Tuzlić-Salihagić (1908-1942), the daughter of Bakir-beg Tulić, was forgotten. In order to feed the muhadjers from eastern Bosnia, Ifaket-hanum, despite the warning not to go for food to Bosanska Dubica, she left. She bravely stood in front of the Ustashas who arrested her and took her to Jasenovac. She was tortured in the camp and eventually died in the greatest agony, watered and fried with hot oil. Nothing was known about that victim of Ustasha crimes. Is it because she is the daughter of Bakir-beg Tuzlić. Bey's children were not desirable in public as benefactors because they were “remnants of rotten feudalism”, belonging to the “sphere of another culture”. In this paper, we have mentioned other, concrete, examples of Bosniak monasticism, from the symbolic content of the entire public space to naming children.

This thesis explores the theme of "worldlessness" in the political thought of Hannah Arendt.
The thesis analyzes "worldlessness" by way of Arendt's reflections on the sub-themes of "contemporary crisis," the "Western tradition," the "modern age" and the modern phenomenon of "thoughtlessness." These sub-themes are examined in chapters one, two, four and five respectively. Chapter three examines Arendt's conception of politics and "the world."
The analysis proceeds on the basis of Arendt's stated conviction that political thought must take its bearings from "incidents of living experience" if it is to be adequate to its subject matter. More specifically, it investigates the basis and significance of Arendt's contention that the modern condition of "worldlessness" has produced a rupture between thought and experience which has radically altered the character of contemporary understanding. In general terms, the thesis examines the origins of modern worldlessness and the implications of this for contemporary thinking.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES
This work aims to study the category of political action in the book The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt. This is a category that evidences the search of the author in valorizing the vita activa, understood as labor, work and action. Considering that the totalitarianism of the twentieth century caused a rupture with the tradition of western political thought, Arendt proposes to think of the category of political action from a recovery of what she believes has been relegated to oblivion throughout tradition, to investigate some political phenomena, as originally manifested. In this dissertation, after the proposal of Arendt’s work is presented in general, the author's understanding about vita activa was evidenced, briefly addressing the categories of labor and work, and then presenting the main aspects of the action, based on the book The Human Condition. Finally, Arendt's analysis of modernity is clarified, along with the process of alienation from the world and the reflection on the system of councils, in which, for Arendt, political action is manifested in an authentic way
Este trabalho tem como objetivo estudar a categoria da ação política na obra A Condição Humana de Hannah Arendt. Essa é uma categoria que evidencia a busca de Arendt em valorizar a vita activa, entendida enquanto trabalho, obra e ação. Partindo da consideração de que o totalitarismo do século XX ocasionou uma ruptura com a tradição do pensamento político ocidental, Arendt se propõe a pensar a categoria de ação política, a partir de uma recuperação daquilo que ela acredita ter sido relegado ao esquecimento ao longo da tradição, para investigar alguns fenômenos políticos, tal qual se manifestaram originalmente. Nesta dissertação, após se apresentar de modo geral a proposta de trabalho arendtiana, evidencia-se sua compreensão a respeito da vita activa, abordando de maneira sucinta as categorias de trabalho e obra, para depois apresentar os aspectos principais da ação, tendo como base sua obra A Condição Humana. Por fim, esclarece-se a análise arendtiana a respeito da modernidade, juntamente com seu processo de alienação frente ao mundo e à reflexão acerca do sistema de conselhos, nos quais, para Arendt, a ação política se manifesta de modo autêntico

Orientador: Yara Adario Frateschi
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
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Resumo: Hannah Arendt trouxe uma nova perspectiva de formulação e de compreensão dos problemas políticos contemporâneos. Se, por um lado, foi capaz de evidenciar a insuficiência teórica do século XX diante do ineditismo dos eventos políticos, tendo que elaborar novas estratégias teóricas capazes de responder ao desafio de pensar a política no seu tempo; por outro lado, tal tarefa não pôde ser realizada sem que tais novidades fossem duramente criticadas por seus contemporâneos antes ou após sua morte em 1975. Neste trabalho, veremos que estas críticas se desenvolvem a partir de dois aspectos: da má compreensão das novidades teóricas elaboradas por Arendt e do tratamento dado pela autora à articulação entre social e político. Como resposta ao primeiro aspecto buscaremos construir a noção de "Categorias de Validade Exemplar", termo que tenta reunir as influências importantes de Kant, Benjamin e Sócrates ao pensamento arendtiano. Segundo, notaremos como as categorias políticas de Hannah Arendt podem ser pensadas em um cenário de efetivação da organização moderna da esfera de aparências, isto é, a sociedade. Sustentaremos que a autora acerta ao apontar para a funcionalização da política pela economia, embora seja necessário reinterpretar aspectos teóricos que a conduzem à citada conclusão para nos permitir pensar a política a partir de conflitos sociais
Abstract: Hannah Arendt brought a new perspective to the formulation and understanding of contemporary political problems. If, on the one hand, she was able to show the theoretical inadequacy of the twentieth century in front of unprecedented political events, having to develop new theoretical strategies capable of meeting the challenge of thinking about politics in her time, on the other, such a task could not be performed without such novelties were harshly criticized by his contemporaries before or after his death in 1975. In this work, we will see that these criticisms are developed from two aspects: the poor understanding of theoretical novelties prepared by Arendt and the treatment given by the author to the relationship between social and political. In response to the first aspect we will seek to build the notion of "Categories of Validity Exemplary", a term that attempts to bring together the important influences of Kant, Benjamin and Socrates to Arendt thought. Second, we will note how the political categories of Hannah Arendt can be thought of in a scenario of realization of the modern organization of sphere of appearances, that is, the society. I shall argue that the author hits the point to the functionalization of the political by economy, although it is necessary to reinterpret theoretical aspects that leads it to the above conclusion to enable us to think politics from social conflicts
Mestrado
Filosofia
Mestre em Filosofia

Dans cette thèse de doctorat, je m’attache à interpréter, à systématiser et à soumettre à un examen critique la pensée politique du droit de Hannah Arendt. En effet, alors que le versant politique de cette œuvre a fait l’objet d’une attention tout à fait considérable, on n’a toujours pas pris la mesure de l’intérêt évident de la philosophe pour le droit et les institutions juridiques et judiciaires les plus essentielles. Or, selon la thèse que je défends, l’une des raisons qui expliquent l’originalité de cette pensée et son caractère stimulant est à chercher du côté du positionnement qu’elle adopte vis-à-vis de la question du droit.

Pour atteindre ces différents objectifs, ma thèse est structurée en deux grandes parties qui correspondent à deux points de vue que l’on peut adopter par rapport au droit et qui se révèlent tout à fait opératoires si l’on accède à une vision panoramique des écrits dispersés qu’Arendt a consacrés au droit. Je distingue ainsi, et ne cesse de faire dialoguer dans ma thèse, le « pôle objectif » (première partie) et le « pôle subjectif » (seconde partie) de la philosophie du droit de Hannah Arendt.

1/ Dans la première partie de mon étude, je montre comment la philosophe s’attache, dans ses livres les plus célèbres, à construire des modèles politiques qui ont tous pour particularité d’être aussi – et de manière indissociable – des modèles juridiques. a) Mon premier chapitre est dédié à l’intérêt manifesté par Hannah Arendt pour les sources de l’Antiquité, et vise en particulier à clarifier le rapport qu’elle entretient vis-à-vis des sources romaines. b) Dans mon deuxième chapitre, je propose une interprétation de sa réflexion consacrée aux deux grandes révolutions modernes de la fin du XVIIIe siècle, les Révolutions française et américaine. Je mets en lumière de quelle façon Arendt, en s’inspirant du précédent américain, élabore un modèle républicain et peut ainsi approfondir sa conception de l’articulation entre droit et politique. c) Dans mon troisième chapitre, je précise les contours d’un contre-modèle élaboré par Arendt dans ses premiers écrits politiques d’envergure, ceux qu’elle a consacrés au totalitarisme.

2/ Dans la seconde partie de mon étude, je me concentre sur le « pôle subjectif » de la philosophie de mon auteur :j’indique comment Arendt mobilise des situations existentielles limites pour penser la condition de l’homme contemporain. a) Dans mon quatrième chapitre, je montre que c’est à partir de la situation des réfugiés et des apatrides de l’entre-deux-guerres que Hannah Arendt nous invite à repenser non seulement les droits de l’homme, mais aussi leur titulaire, que j’appelle l’« homme des droits de l’homme ». b) Dans mon cinquième chapitre, je m’attache à mettre en évidence, dans toutes ses nuances, la figure du « juge » que Hannah Arendt s’attache à reconstituer après avoir assisté au procès d’Adolf Eichmann, après avoir ressenti ce que je nomme le « choc » du procès Eichmann. c) Dans mon sixième et dernier chapitre, enfin, je m’interroge sur les raisons profondes qui incitent Arendt à voir dans les grandes campagnes de désobéissance civile qui éclatent aux États-Unis durant les années 1950 et 1960, non le signe d’un déclin des institutions, mais, au contraire, la marque d’une renaissance de l’action citoyenne.

Je conclus en synthétisant l’apport de Hannah Arendt à notre pensée juridique. Dans cette œuvre, le droit n’apparaît jamais comme une simple contrainte extérieure pour la politique, ni comme son « supplément d’âme », mais comme sa condition d’existence :en conférant à la liberté politique ses limites, limites spatiales mais aussi relationnelles et temporelles, en lui offrant un cadre stable au sein duquel elle peut s’épanouir, le droit n’ampute pas la politique d’une part d’elle-même mais, au contraire, participe de sa constitution. Me fondant sur trois catégories centrales de la réflexion juridique (législation, constitution, juridiction), je souligne en outre tout l’intérêt d’une confrontation approfondie et détaillée entre l’œuvre arendtienne et les questions classiques et contemporaines qui animent le champ de la théorie et de la philosophie du droit, ce qui me permet d’ouvrir un certain nombre de perspectives de recherches futures.

Doctorat en Sciences juridiques
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The thesis inquires into the theme of political judgement and aims to rethink it from the perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence. It seeks to take up the contemporary challenge of political judgement that remains inadequately addressed within recent theorizing: how, given the modern breakdown of metaphysical absolutes, to reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity able to confront the ambiguous, plural and complex character of our postfoundational world. Against this background, the thesis aspires to reclaim the distinctly historical orientation of twentieth-century existentialism, in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. It draws on their aesthetic sensibility to resuscitate the human judging ability in its worldly ambiguity and point towards an account of political judgement capable of facing up to the challenges of our plural and uncertain political reality. Retrieving their vigilant assumption of the situated, worldly condition of human political existence and the attendant perplexity of judging politically, the aim of the thesis is to suggest how the existentialists' insights can be brought to bear on contemporary problematics of political judgement that seem to elude the grasp of abstract standards and predetermined yardsticks.

Defence date: 28 March 2007
Examining board: Prof. Peter Wagner, supervisor ; Prof. Christine Chwacscza ; Prof. Heidrun Friese, EHESS, Paris, and JWG University, Frankfurt, external co-supervisor ; Prof. Ugo Vlaisavljevic, University of Sarajevo
First made available online on 24 June 2015.
The project inquires into Hannah Arendt's thinking of the political in order to develop from it a possible new thread towards a different philosophy beyond metaphysical legacy. Arendt's notion of human existence as always necessary doing to the world rather than just being is read here from her understanding of man as beginning. It is argued that, as such, it uncovers the existentialist dimension of Arendt's work, by and large neglected in Arendtian literature, while also influencing Arendt's understanding of the political as working freedom out of necessity and taking up of existence. This ultimately constitutes the unexplored contribution by Arendt to contemporary ontology: If ontology if to overcome and move beyond its metaphysical roots, it must ask political questions as the fundamental philosophical questions since it concerns the being that is always necessarily (in) doing. This reading of Arendt's project is founded upon the parallels of her thought with Heidegger's work that proceeds in the same philosophical direction. In order to understand and develop the implications of Arendt's thinking of the political in that direction, the project engages with Arendt's work on the source of action, which is interpreted here as a conceptual effort to overcome the metaphysical dualism of world. Arendt's theory of mind is analysed in relation to two fundamental principles of action, plurality and freedom, in order to argue that none of the three mind faculties - thinking, willing, judging - can generate action. The theory is then expanded through reference to the fragments on imagination in Arendt's writing, elaborated and developed in dialogue with Heidegger's and Castoriadis' work on the concept of imagination. Developing the concept of originary imagination as the source of action from these intuitions in Arendt's thought, the project uncovers the ontological fundament of opposition of Arendt's work to Heidegger's philosophy and establishes the ground to assert that Arendt's work offers an opening to post-metaphysical philosophy. While Heidegger's project is arrested by the notion of Dasein as being-in-the-world, unable to transcend givenness of existence and finally affirming it, Arendt puts forth the notion of human existence as primarily being to the world, always bringing about the new and resisting the givenness. This notion of human existence suggests that the fundamental questions of ontology ought to be political questions, the questions of doing rather than being.

Defence date: 28 January 2010
Examining Board: Prof. Martin Van Gelderen, Supervisor, European University Institute; Prof. Steven Aschheim, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Prof. Raymond Geuss, Cambridge University; Prof. Bo Stråth, Helsinki University
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
It is my contention that a historically and thus philosophically accurate understanding of Arendt’s and Strauss’s projects cannot be gained without knowledge of the debates and controversies that shaped their early thought. I will also argue that it is insufficient to limit such a reconstruction to a single or few contemporary figures of influence, or even more so, to their engagement with the canon of philosophy or the 'problem of modernity'. Instead, Arendt’s and Strauss’s intellectual and political maturation took place in the broader context of a variety of overlapping contemporary conceptual fields, conventions and concerns. By reconstructing the unfolding of Arendt’s and Strauss’s scholarly and political outlook against the background of these discursive contexts, I hope to show that what are often understood as their critiques of modernity - and confronted as such, in this general sense, or used as a source of inspiration - emerged from their engagement with these particular disputes. Alongide the ways in which the conventions and concerns of their time influenced their philosophical and political sensibilities, I will also spell out their early critiques of these conventions, intellectual or political.They did not only intellectually inherit certain disciplinary traditions of discussion, but also sought to overcome what they deemed had led these astray.

In the scholarship on the thought of Hannah Arendt we find a recurrent view that she sees truth and politics as not just distinct but mutually exclusive phenomena. In this thesis I argue that this is not an adequate understanding of Arendt. It has been pointed out in the previous scholarship that Arendt asserts the importance of at least one kind of truth for politics, namely “truth of facts.” I argue that this view of the relationship between truth and politics is more complex than that. In Arendt’s writings we can see a sustained enquiry into the relationship between politics and truth, in which truth includes, but is more than, “truth of fact.” To demonstrate this, I proceed from the assumption that Arendt sees “thinking” as the vehicle of this relationship between truth and politics. Thus my investigation of Arendt’s conception of the relationship between truth and politics foregrounds an exploration of Arendt’s conception of thinking. As I indicated above, in Arendt we find a fascinating and provocative suggestion that thinking concerns “the quest for meaning.” Understood as such, thinking is not released from truth-seeking. Truth here is something other than fact, although it may need to be informed by fact. Truth-seeking in relation to meaning, for Arendt, loses any connection to definite results because it has to become adequate to what she calls plurality as well as to the need of humans to “reconcile themselves” to the world that they share with others. By providing a close textual analysis of five essays in which Arendt enquires into what is thinking, I will show that Arendt associates thinking, understood as the quest for meaning, with the willingness to express one’s doxa (or opinion), the willingness to think for oneself (selbstdenken), the willingness to engage in storytelling, the willingness to practise the dialogue of the “two-in-one,” the willingness to face up to reality and the related willingness to recognise and accept factual truth, and, finally, the willingness to assume personal responsibility for judgment. I suggest that the quest for meaning in all these different modes must involve “truthfulness” – truthfulness in the sense of an opening to the truth of what is disclosed. This kind of truth is neither irrefutable nor refutable – it belongs to the domain of significance and profoundly concerns human experience. It is not an “objective” truth that exists independently of humans. This truth is a phenomenological achievement that demands of humans that they actively engage in an unending process of discovering this truth and are willing to seek truth. An orientation to truth involved in the quest for meaning is expressed especially in the willingness to engage with “the fact of human plurality” – perhaps, for Arendt, the quintessential “fact.” For truthfulness requires of a thinker a willingness to articulate and maintain one’s own perspective on the world, which in turn demands an orientation towards others and recognising them as unique individuals.

Democracy seems to be in crisis and scholars have started to consider the possibility that “the only game in town” might be rigged. This book theorizes the crisis of democracy from a structural point of view, arguing that liberal representative governments suffer from systemic corruption, a form of political decay that should be understood as the oligarchization of society, and proposes an anti-oligarchic institutional solution based on a radical interpretation of republican constitutional thought. If one agrees that the minimal normative expectation of liberal democracies is that governments should advance the welfare of the majority within constitutional safeguards, increasing income inequality and the relative immiseration of the majority of citizens would be in itself a deviation from good rule, a sign of corruption. As a way to understand how we could revert the current patterns of political corruption, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the institutional, procedural, and normative innovations to protect political liberty proposed by Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt. Because their ideas to institutionalize popular power have consistently been misunderstood, instrumentalized, demonized, or neglected, part of what this project wants to accomplish is to offer a serious engagement with their proposals through a plebeian interpretative lens that renders them as part of the same intellectual tradition. In this way, the book assembles a “B side” of constitutional thought composed of the apparent misfits in a tradition that has been dominated by the impulse to suppress conflict instead of harnessing its liberty-producing properties. As a way to effectively deal with systemic corruption and oligarchic domination, the book proposes to follow this plebeian constitutionalism and instituionalize popular collective power. A proposed plebeian branch would be autonomous and aimed not at achieving self-government or direct democracy, but rather at an effort to both judge and censor elites who rule. The plebeian branch would consist of two institutions: a decentralized network of radically inclusive local assemblies, empowered to initiate and veto legislation as well as to exercise periodic constituent power, and a delegate, surveillance office able to enforce decisions and impeach public officials. The establishment of primary assemblies at the local level would not only allow ordinary people to push back against oligarchic domination through the political system but also inaugurate an institutional conception of the people as the many assembled locally: a political collective agent operating as a network of political judgment in permanent flow. The people as network would be a political subject with as many brains as assemblies, in which collective learning, reaction against domination, and social change would occur organically and independently from representative government and political parties.