Common : On Revolution in the 21 st Century by Pierre Dardot

Revolution simultaneously legitimises and denies the coordinate centre of the political order of Modernity. It is difficult to describe the historical evolution from the early industrial, class-national forms of political organisation to late or global Modernity other than in terms of a low-intensity revolution in the rate of social change. On the other hand, this permanent modernisation is not revolutionary in the sense that the periodic splits of elites, colour revolutions, coups and national liberation movements do not in and of themselves make demands for fundamental change in the value-institutional core of the political order of Modernity. The potential for a new revolution can be consequent only on a repudiation of Modernity in favour of an alternative political project having a greater capability for universalisation and totalisation. If, in legitimising its liberal consensus and nation-state models as the dominant political format of their synthesis, capitalism is the value-institutional quintessence of the political order of Modernity, it is precisely in challenges to capitalism, the liberal consensus and nationalism that provide the most obvious means for crystallising revolutionary movements. From such a perspective, capitalism increasingly comes up against the global limits of its expansion, with class ideologies degenerating into a fragmented, technologically-intermediated populism, and nationstates experiencing increasing pressure from alternative political formats (city networks, multinational corporations, etc.) as they attempt to preserve the model of the social state. While various discourses and social groups profess to play the role of revolutionary utopias 1 The article is prepared with the support of RFBR grant No. 18-011-00211 "Social Consensus in Russia: Mechanisms for Ideological and Institutional Regulation".

Revolution in the making of the …, 2008

Changing Societies & Personalities, 2018

Revolution simultaneously legitimises and denies the coordinate centre of the political order of Modernity. It is difficult to describe the historical evolution from the early industrial, class-national forms of political organisation to late or global Modernity other than in terms of a low-intensity revolution in the rate of social change. On the other hand, this permanent modernisation is not revolutionary in the sense that the periodic splits of elites, colour revolutions, coups and national liberation movements do not in and of themselves make demands for fundamental change in the value-institutional core of the political order of Modernity. The potential for a new revolution can be consequent only on a repudiation of Modernity in favour of an alternative political project having a greater capability for universalisation and totalisation. If, in legitimising its liberal consensus and nation-state models as the dominant political format of their synthesis, capitalism is the value-institutional quintessence of the political order of Modernity, it is precisely in challenges to capitalism, the liberal consensus and nationalism that provide the most obvious means for crystallising revolutionary movements. From such a perspective, capitalism increasingly comes up against the global limits of its expansion, with class ideologies degenerating into a fragmented, technologically-intermediated populism, and nationstates experiencing increasing pressure from alternative political formats (city networks, multinational corporations, etc.) as they attempt to preserve the model of the social state. While various discourses and social groups profess to play the role of revolutionary utopias

Baumgartner/Bühler/Zimmer (eds.), The Revolution is dead. Long live the Revolution!, Prestel: New York/London/Munich, 2017

Contention, 2018

In Contention volume 5, issue 2, Benjamin Abrams interviewed the political theorist John Dunn on the topic of modern revolutions. In the interview, Dunn advanced the view that the “Epoch of Revolution” had ended by 1989 and that what many scholars called revolutions today were simply instances of regime collapse. The interview received a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners including Hugo Slim. Slim challenged Dunn’s concept of revolution in this issue, and Dunn responded defending his ideas. This article attempts to tease out the differences underlying the two scholars’ disagreement as to whether the Epoch of Revolution has truly passed. The article proposes that while processual approaches (such as Slim’s) conceive of revolution primarily as a political means, Dunn’s “programmatic” approach to revolution conceives of it as not only a means but also a political end. The article also considers the implications of Dunn’s theory of revolution, and the representative challe...

The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change …, 2003

The Commons and a New Global Governance: Democratic, Institutional and Legal Perspectives, 2018