Subproject II

Archive – Refiguring Forgotten Institutions

The Subproject Archive responds to the crisis of democratic imagination by turning to ‘forgotten institutions’, i.e. institutional configurations – past and present, utopian and realized – that are ‘forgotten’ in the sense of being neglected in current debates on the crisis and future of democracy. The goal is to investigate institutions that challenge and decenter taken-for-granted beliefs about what democracy might look like. To envision alternative futures, however, we need to explore alternative sources:

  • alternative places by turning to global political thought beyond the confines of the Western canon;
  • alternative times by diversifying the traditional focus on ancient and modern proposals;
  • alternative voices and forms of expression by acknowledging the production of political theory outside the genre of ‘big books’, including manifestos, speeches, declarations and storytelling.

The subproject is led by Sara Gebh, PhD.

 

Two Research Avenues

Establish an Archive of Forgotten Institutions:

By compiling a Handbook of Forgotten Institutions, this subproject aims to create a living archive of institutions that can reinvigorate, reorient and shape the debate on the crisis of democracy. The goal is to (re)activate the institutional memory of global political thought and the history of ideas and offer novel and innovative ways on how to envision and build democratic futures.

Explore the Uses of the History of Ideas for Democratic Theory:

The subproject uses the history of ideas to trigger an estrangement effect with the present. By deliberately exploring ideas and debates whose understanding of freedom, equality and solidarity do not seamlessly fit into the contemporary political set-up, the subproject’s research is a reminder that not only things could have turned out otherwise, but that they can be radically reconfigured. This will be discussed in terms of methodology under the concept of creative anachronism as well as with respect to debates concerning the tradition of plebeianism, the concept of license, Solon’s law on stasis as well as a forgotten strand of theories of militant democracy, among others.