Ebook: Democracy and the Political Unconscious

Political philosopher Noelle McAfee proposes a powerful new political theory for our post-9/11 world, in which an old pathology-the repetition compulsion-has manifested itself in a seemingly endless war on terror. McAfee argues that the quintessentially human desire to participate in a world with others is the key to understanding the public sphere and to creating a more democratic society, a world that all members can have a hand in shaping. But when some are effectively denied this participation, whether through trauma or terror, instead of democratic politics, there arises a political uncon.;contents; acknowledgments; Introduction; CHAPTER 1 -- The Political Unconscious; CHAPTER 2 -- Modernity's Traumas; CHA PTER 3 -- Targeting the Public Sphere; CHA PTER 4 -- The Repetition Compulsion or the Endless War on Terror; CHAPTER 5 -- Recovering Community; CHAPTER 6 -Deliberative Democracy; CHAPTER 7 -Feminist Theory, Politics, and Freedom; CHAPTER 8 -Public Knowledge; CHAPTER 9 -- Three Models of Democratic Deliberation; CHAPTER 10 -- The Limits of Deliberation, Democratic Myths, New Frontiers; CHAPTER 11 -- Media and the Public Sphere; Epilogue; notes; works cited; index.