Joe Cronin wrote:
>
> Isn't it more useful to think of "democracy" in Western
> societies as a set of social practices (with their
> discursive logics, and institutional forms of reproduction,
> etc.) specific to (our) those societies, rather than as a
> "regulative ideal"? Wouldn't a Foucauldian approach involve
> looking at the material functions, techniques, and effects
> of democracy rather than democratic ideologies?
I thought the point of the quote is that democracy *is* an ideal (i.e.
it's desirable), but attempts to *enforce* democracy contradict the
ideal. (This is not so well put.) A good case study for this idea
might me the treatment of Communists in America during the Codl War.
Nicholas
>
> Isn't it more useful to think of "democracy" in Western
> societies as a set of social practices (with their
> discursive logics, and institutional forms of reproduction,
> etc.) specific to (our) those societies, rather than as a
> "regulative ideal"? Wouldn't a Foucauldian approach involve
> looking at the material functions, techniques, and effects
> of democracy rather than democratic ideologies?
I thought the point of the quote is that democracy *is* an ideal (i.e.
it's desirable), but attempts to *enforce* democracy contradict the
ideal. (This is not so well put.) A good case study for this idea
might me the treatment of Communists in America during the Codl War.
Nicholas