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Political theory in a provisionalmodeLasse Thomassen aa Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales,Madrid, SpainPublished online: 19 Nov 2010.

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Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy

Vol. 13, No. 4, December 2010, 453–473

ISSN 1369-8230 print/ISSN 1743-8772 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/09692290.2010.517962http://www.informaworld.com

Political theory in a provisional mode

Lasse Thomassen

Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, Madrid, Spain

Taylor and FrancisFCRI_A_517962.sgm10.1080/09692290.2010.517962Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy1369-8230 (print)/1743-8772 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis1340000002010LasseThomassenl.thomassen@qmul.ac.uk

Given the imperfectness, uncertainty and disagreement that characterisespolitics, we should treat policies, institutions and ideals as provisional. Itake this basic understanding of politics as my starting point, and I thenask two questions: How should we think of provisionality in politics?What are the effects of introducing provisionality into political theory? Istart from a critique of the way provisionality is conceptualised bycontemporary Kantian critical theory, in particular in the work ofElisabeth Ellis, who has developed a theory of provisional politics. Onthis basis, I propose an alternative conception of provisionality inspiredby deconstruction and the work of Jacques Derrida. Ellis’s conception ofprovisionality is a step in the right direction, among other things becauseit works against rigidity and paternalism in political theory. Nonetheless,Ellis stays within Kantian critical theory, and I will argue that it is possible– and indeed necessary – to radicalise her insights. I argue that we shouldthink of provisionality not in terms of ‘not yet’, but in terms of Derrida’snotion of ‘to come’. That is, I argue that imperfectness, uncertainty anddisagreement are constitutive of politics, and therefore it is provisionalityall the way down, and this has implications of how we approach politicsand for how we do political theory.

Keywords:

Derrida; Ellis; provisionality; ‘democracy to come’

Introduction: why provisionality?

Politics is characterised by imperfectness, uncertainty and disagreement. Poli-tics may be shaped by ideals, but most would agree that our institutions arelacking when compared to those ideals, and some claim that this is a permanentfeature of politics. Politics is also characterised by uncertainty about the effectsof events and policies. Finally, despite the contemporary hegemony of neo-liberalism and liberal democracy, disagreement is still prevalent, includingdisagreements about the ideals of politics. As Elisabeth Ellis (2008, p. 153)notes, ‘[p]olitics is unlikely to come to an end any time soon’, because thereis no sign that imperfection, uncertainty and disagreement will disappear.These are all reasons for taking a provisional approach to politics: in the faceof imperfection, uncertainty and disagreement, we should treat policies anddecisions, institutions and even ideals as provisional. In this paper, I take thisbasic understanding of politics as my starting point. I then ask how we should

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think of provisionality in politics, and what the effects of introducing provi-sionality into political theory are. Naturally, the answer to the second questionwill be shaped by the answer to the first, since any particular conception ofprovisionality will have specific implications for how one theorises politicsand does political theory.

There are different ways of conceptualising provisionality. In this paper,I focus on the way provisionality is conceptualised by contemporary Kantiancritical theory. This includes deliberative democrats such as Jürgen Habermas,but to some degree also liberal theorists (e.g., Mookherjee 2001). On the basisof a critique of the Kantian critical theory conception of provisionality, Ipropose an alternative conception of provisionality inspired by deconstructionand the work of Jacques Derrida.

For deliberative democrats, some form of provisionality is an inherentpart of deliberative democracy. For instance, Amy Gutmann and DennisThompson (2004, see also Rummens 2008, p. 402) use the term ‘provisional-ity’ explicitly and argue that both deliberative principles and outcomes areprovisional, albeit with certain limitations. Similarly, Habermas argues thatdeliberations are always open to the potential objections by any participant; aconsensus is only reached on the proviso that someone may in the futureobject and, thus, reopen the deliberations. Habermas (1990, pp. 32, 40) alsoargues that the procedures and principles he rationally reconstructs are falli-ble and open to challenges. Although he does not use the term ‘provisional-ity’, the idea is the same: even when arguing for a particular set of principles,we must take deliberative procedures and their outcomes as provisional(compare Ellis 2004, p. 369).

My starting point in this paper is the work of Elisabeth Ellis, who workswithin Kantian critical theory. Ellis has the most developed account of provi-sionality in politics, and she applies provisionality to a range of issues inpolitical science and political theory, including in the area of deliberativedemocracy. How one thinks about provisionality has implications for how wethink about imperfection, uncertainty and disagreement in politics, and forhow we think about critical ideals and autonomy. Ellis’s conception of provi-sionality is a step in the right direction, among other things because it worksagainst rigidity and paternalism in political theory. Nonetheless, Ellis stayswithin Kantian critical theory, and I will argue that it is possible, and indeednecessary, to radicalise her insights about provisionality.

After introducing Ellis’s argument for provisionality, I shall first questionthe distinction she makes between provisionality and conclusiveness. I willshow that her attempt to rationalise the limits of provisionality rests on thesuppression of uncertainty and disagreement, which she otherwise insists areessential parts of politics. I argue that it is provisionality all the way down. Ithen argue that rather than thinking of the ideal of autonomy as ‘not yet’realised, we should think of it as, with Derrida’s (2005a, pp. 86–92) term, ‘tocome’, that is, as always lacking and perfectible. This leads to a different

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conception of provisionality understood in terms of ‘to come’, where politicstakes place in a tension between the unconditionality of ideals such as auton-omy and the always conditional anticipations of those ideals. In the subsequenttwo sections, I develop this conception of provisionality

qua

‘to come’. Start-ing from Ellis’s notion of discursive dynamics, I first argue that, in order toanalyse the politics of provisionality, we must examine its discursive framing.Next, and starting from Ellis’s discussion of the politics of species preserva-tion, I argue that the politics of provisionality must be analysed through thetensions between provisionality and anticipation and between openness andclosure. Finally, I conclude by looking at what we can expect from politicaltheory in a provisional mode.

Kantian provisionality

Ellis articulates her notion of provisionality through a critical reading ofKant’s political philosophy. Kant may seem like an odd starting point forthinking about provisionality. After all, is Kant not the philosopher of absolutemoral imperatives? He is, but as Ellis (2008, p. 2f) rightly notes, his politicalphilosophy is more open to the imperfections and uncertainties of the worldof politics, and it is in Kant’s political writings that Ellis finds a source forthinking about the provisionality of politics (compare Banham 2007). Draw-ing on Kant, she presents two interconnected arguments for provisionality: thegap between ideals and reality, and autonomy.

Ideals stand in a tension with reality; this is not necessarily a problem, buta natural characteristic of politics. However, Ellis argues, a problem emergesif the gap is too big. The danger is that the ideal will appear utopian and toofar removed from the present to be able to guide action under the imperfectconditions of the present. Provisionality is a way to bring ideals closer to real-ity and thereby, it is hoped, reality closer to ideals. With Kant, Ellis adds thatany change must be gradual rather than revolutionary. The reasons are stabil-ity, which is necessary for autonomy, and the risk of a reactionary backlashfrom revolutionary change (Ellis 2008, p. 64).

With regard to autonomy, Ellis argues that we should start from autonomyas a basic principle or ideal. For Ellis, autonomy means substantive, asopposed to merely formal, self-rule. She also expresses this in terms of thenotions of agency and plurality: we must leave it up to citizens themselves tomake decisions about the norms under which they live, and we must respectthe plurality of singular individuals (Ellis 2008, pp. 6, 20f). We should thenask what conditions are necessary for autonomy in a given situation and whatis necessary for bringing these conditions about.

Provisional right comes with the proviso that we must move towards therealisation of autonomy. The focus is on the process of realising the conditionsfor applying rights and ideals rather than on the rights and ideals themselves(Ellis 2005, p. 71, see also p. 182f); and the focus is on the long run rather

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than on the here and now. For Ellis, what matters are the process and the condi-tions under which citizens themselves can realise their ideals in the future.According to her understanding of autonomy, the conditions of autonomy –and the rights necessary for realising it – are not given once and for all. It isneither given what they are, nor how they are to be realised. Citizens mustthemselves decide what the rights necessary for autonomy are, and they mustthemselves realise those rights. Provisionality thus has an anti-paternalisticsense to it: one must leave as much as possible to citizens themselves to decide.In this way, autonomy provides a justification for provisionality (Ellis 2004,p. 357, 2005, p.182f). One must keep things open; this much follows from theaffirmation of agency and plurality.

With Kant, Ellis argues that the conditions of autonomy vary according totime and place. Moreover, the specific conditions needed for autonomy donot exist naturally, but must be brought about through state intervention. Ellis(2006, pp. 544–546, 2008, pp. 56–60) contrasts this view and Kant’s theoryof rights with the theory of rights found in what she calls ‘minimalist contrac-tarianism’. The problem with minimalist contractarians, such as DavidGauthier, is that they take an ahistorical situation –

viz.

, the state of nature andthe social contract – as the normative basis for rights. The result is that rightsare dehistoricised and appear absolute and universal; they are unduly conclu-sive where they should be provisional. At the same time, the minimalistcontractarians take a certain kind of society and subject – the white propertyowning male of European civil society in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies – as natural and so depoliticise them. As Ellis rightly argues, whatare in fact contingent and historical conditions of autonomy are presented asnecessary and universal.

Whether or not the conditions will at some point be present for the reali-sation of autonomy,

1

there is a gap between the ideal of autonomy and realityhere and now. This takes us to the distinction between conclusive and provi-sional right. The distinction between conclusive and provisional right is drawnaccording to whether the rights in question are essential for progress towardautonomy or not. Conclusive right must be applied immediately. The failureto do so would undermine the very possibility of autonomy – if not now, thenin the future; that is, conclusive right covers what is essential for autonomy.Some practices detract from autonomy here and now, according to Ellis, butdo not undermine the possibility of autonomy in the long run. Ellis providesexamples of conclusive and provisional rights from Kant’s

Perpetual Peace

(Ellis 2005, pp. 80–86, Kant 1991, pp. 93–97); there the issue is whether apractice prevents peace altogether in the future or not, with peace being aprecondition for lawfulness and autonomy. Some things such as the misuseof human agents (e.g., assassination) ‘constitute unacceptable contradictionsto the idea of the rule of law itself’ (Ellis 2005, p. 80), and these practices musttherefore cease with immediate effect. Other practices, such as standingarmies, ‘merely hinder progress but do not contradict lawfulness per se’ (2005,

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p. 80). In these cases, right is provisional and may be ignored for the momentwithout definitively undermining the possibility of autonomy in the future.

Ellis (2005, pp. 120–133, 2006, 2008, chapter 3) also introduces thedistinction between provisional and conclusive right in the context of adiscussion of Kant and property rights. Here she argues that a condition ofautonomy is that citizens have some means of living that are necessary forhuman agency. As a result, some form of private property is necessary forhuman agency, but the particular form that private property rights will take isprovisional and will vary according to historical circumstances and accordingto the political will of citizens. Finally, Ellis (2004, p. 366, 2008, p. 20) addsslavery as another example of a practice covered by conclusive right, becauseit negates the conditions of autonomy.

Ellis sums up the idea of provisional right and the arguments from the gapbetween ideals and reality and from autonomy thus:

The concept of provisional right applies to institutions that imperfectly mirrortheir own normative principles; since all existing political institutions do this,pragmatic politics must follow a rule of provisional rather than conclusiveright. A general formulation for provisional right in Kantian language is:‘Always leave open the possibility of entering into a rightful condition.’ (Ellis2008, p. 112, quoting Kant 1996, p. 485; see also 2005, p. 9)

‘The values of agency and plurality are conditions of principled politicalaction as such’, and so provisional theory takes them ‘as given’. That meansthat, whatever the gap between ideals and reality, we must work for conditionsmaking possible ‘moral argument in politics’ (Ellis 2008, p. 6). Note that Ellisbelieves that provisional theory ‘abstracts from the particular contents of anygiven principle to the general fact of moral principles and their political impor-tance’ (2008, p. 3). For Ellis (2008, pp. 21, 29), provisional theory is, thus, asecond- as opposed to a first-order, theory, a notion she takes from Gutmannand Thompson (2004, p. 126f). A second-order theory provides a frameworkwithin which it is possible to discuss disagreements as well as how to deal withthose disagreements; or, in Ellis’s terms, provisional theory aims at the condi-tions – and only that – of realising autonomy. Whether the distinctionsbetween second- and first-order theories, and between conclusive and provi-sional theorising, can be upheld is another question.

Disagreement, uncertainty and the limits of provisionality

Ellis’s argument is not an argument against conclusiveness

as such

, onlyundue conclusiveness. For that reason, I now turn to the way in which sheestablishes the limits to provisionality, that is, the distinction betweenprovisional and conclusive.

Take for instance the argument for provisionality from the gap betweenideal and reality. Here disagreements are likely, for instance in the argument

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for gradualism, where the uncertainty about the effects of revolutionary change(will it lead to a backlash?, etc.) also applies to gradual and reformist changes,even if the uncertainty may appear smaller. In addition, as Ellis (2008, p. 154)herself notes, gradualism and reformism may lead us to pass on revolutionaryopportunities to transcend present injustices.

2

Progress can be guaranteed fromneither revolutionary nor gradual change; the uncertainty about the futureapplies to revolutionary and gradual changes alike. This is not an argumentfor or against either reform or revolution, but merely an attempt to highlightthe disagreements and uncertainties that arise when we try to distinguishreform and revolution.

Disagreement and uncertainty also mark the argument for provisionalityfrom autonomy. Ellis (2004, p. 367, emphases added) writes: ‘To respect thebedrock democratic principles of substantive self-rule [i.e., autonomy], theo-ries must remain provisional rather than conclusivist, leaving

most

issues tothe active decisionmaking of citizens themselves.’ Most, but not all. Ellislimits provisionality to those ‘policy area[s] beyond those

directly

involvedin guaranteeing self-rule’ and those ‘policy outcomes beyond those

required

for substantive self-rule’.Here I do not wish to enter into a detailed discussion of Ellis’s or Kant’s

examples of provisional right. Rather, I want to question their argumentativestrategy and the way Ellis establishes the distinction between provisionalityand conclusiveness. Take for example Ellis’s discussion of Kant’s

PerpetualPeace

. Here one may ask whether, for instance, assassination really does‘undermine the very possibility of peace’ (Ellis 2005, p. 83). And one mayask whether it does so in a way that is qualitatively different from treating statesas patrimony, for instance, a practice that may be provisionally tolerated. Simi-larly, one may question the relationship Ellis establishes between autonomyand private property rights. My aim is not to pass judgement on the particularexamples of conclusive and provisional right, but to highlight the potentialdisagreements and uncertainty about the effects of particular practices onpeace and autonomy.

If we follow Ellis and accept the existence of plurality, then there arebound to be disagreements about the necessity of the relations that Kant andEllis establish between autonomy and particular practices, such as assassina-tion and private property. Given Ellis’s normative commitment to agency andplurality, these disagreements must be respected. Similarly, given uncertaintyabout the future and about the effects of particular practices, the necessity ofparticular practices for autonomy is open to empirical disagreements. Hence,both disagreement and uncertainty blur the distinction Ellis makes betweenconclusive and provisional on the basis of the ideal of autonomy.

Given the disagreement and uncertainty that Ellis herself highlights, I willargue that we must extend provisionality to the provisional/conclusive distinc-tion. It all comes down to the nature of the link Ellis makes between theabstract, governing ideal of autonomy (or progress towards it) and particular

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practices and institutions. Some practices and institutions are deemed to becritical for progress towards autonomy, for instance assassination, privateproperty and slavery, and these are therefore covered by conclusive right.Other practices and institutions are deemed to be dispensable for progresstowards autonomy, and as a result they are covered by provisional right.

Ellis rightly criticises minimalist contractarians for naturalising, andthereby depoliticising, particular, contingent conditions of autonomy throughthe state of nature argument. However, Ellis herself naturalises the links shemakes between autonomy and certain practices and institutions when sheestablishes the distinction between provisional and conclusive right. She doesso by presenting the links as necessary and deductive:

if

we want autonomy,

then

it follows that such and such must be done. With Kant, she refers to thistype of reasoning as ‘hypothetical imperatives’, which take the form of‘if…then’. This distinguishes the hypothetical imperatives from the absolutecharacter of the categorical imperative, and it distinguishes provisionalistreasoning from the absolute and universalist claims of conclusivist reasoning(Ellis 2008, pp. 4f, 159, note 12).

However, the use of hypothetical imperatives and this mode of reasoningintroduce a tension between freedom and necessity that Ellis (2005, p. 99f)otherwise criticises in Kant when she criticises Kant’s occasional recourse toa teleological conception of history. The use of hypothetical imperatives notonly assumes that there is agreement about the ‘if…’, that is, about the ideals;it also assumes that the relationship (‘if…then’) is necessary and uncontro-versial. In short, the hypothetical imperatives can only do the intended workin a context of certainty and agreement, which Ellis otherwise argues is neverpresent. However, if the reasoning by which we arrive at the distinctionbetween provisional and conclusive is itself conclusive and necessary (‘imper-ative’ because it can be construed from autonomy), this places the distinctionbetween provisional and conclusive beyond agency and plurality.

There are two main reasons for doubting the possibility of drawing a cleardistinction between provisional and conclusive right; or, to be more precise,there are two reasons why any particular distinction is necessarily subject todispute. The first reason is that there will be empirical and normative disagree-ments over the ideals and over the necessity of the links Ellis makes with thehypothetical imperatives. Given the affirmation of the value of plurality, wemust take seriously and respect these disagreements.

The second reason for questioning the necessity of the provisional/conclu-sive distinction is uncertainty. There is, first, the uncertainty arising from lackof knowledge about the future and specifically about the future effects ofparticular practices and institutions (will private property enhance our abilityto move towards autonomy?, etc.). However, there is also an uncertainty of amore fundamental kind. It arises from the nature of the object we are dealingwith, namely human societies and human agency. As Ellis (2004, pp. 350–352, but compare p. 372f) argues, since human beings are self-interpreting

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agents, political science cannot be moulded on the model of natural science.In other words, as an object of knowledge, society resists objectification in itstotality, and any knowledge about society will be marked by this uncertainty.Yet, this undercuts Ellis’s use of hypothetical imperatives, because these relyon certainty about the (causal) relationship between autonomy and particularpractices and institutions.

For all these reasons, I suggest that the provisional/conclusive distinctionis not rationalisable or subject to universal agreement. Rather, we should thinkof the distinction as a matter of articulation and contestation. The distinctionis not given – not even by a hypothetical ideal such as autonomy – but is contin-gent and therefore a matter of political articulation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985,p. 105). The distinction is discursively framed, and social and political agentsarticulate it in different ways and in relation to specific examples.

This does not mean that no rationalisation, knowledge or agreement ispossible. They clearly are. For instance, today there is general agreement thatslavery is unacceptable, whether this argument proceeds from the ideal ofautonomy or not. Slavery can be articulated as contradicting autonomy. Yet,there are still disagreements about how to define slavery, something that isevident when we refer to people living under ‘slave-like’ conditions.

Nor does it mean that distinctions are impossible. After all, we makedistinctions all the time, and the argument here does not imply that one cannotdistinguish between provisionality and conclusiveness. What it does mean isthat the provisional/conclusive distinction is contingent (rather than necessaryand universal), and that the distinction can only be drawn by suppressing orabstracting from this contingency, which one can also think of as disagreementand uncertainty. There is a limit to rationalisation, and rationalisations – andagreement and knowledge – are always discursively framed. Rationalisationsonly make sense within more or less stable discursive frameworks, and theseframeworks – and how they are constituted – must be accounted for.

This is an important difference between Kantian critical theory anddeconstruction. It is an important difference because of the importance criti-cal theorists place on distinction. Critical theory – from Kant to Habermasand Ellis – is precisely concerned with making critical distinctions, as theetymology of ‘critique’ also suggests (from the Greek

krinein

meaning ‘todiscern’ or ‘decide’). Critical theory is concerned with making distinctionsthat are critical in a double sense: critical in the sense of essential for auton-omy and emancipation, and critical in the sense of not only empirical but alsonormative.

Therefore it is no coincidence that Kantians and critical theorists are scep-tical of deconstruction. For critical theorists, the deconstructivist questioningand destabilisation of distinctions at best makes deconstruction useless(because incapable of contributing to normative social theory), and at worstit makes it dangerous (because sliding into relativism) (see e.g. Habermas2006). From a deconstructive perspective, things look differently. First of all,

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as I have argued, it is ‘only’ the status of distinctions that deconstruction crit-icises, not the possibility of making distinctions generally. Moreover, thedeconstructive challenging and destabilisation of distinctions arises from aconcern with accuracy and rigour. Deconstruction questions and destabilisesdistinctions in the course of interrogating them. Thus, from the perspective ofdeconstruction, to engage in an incessant questioning of distinctions is a wayto take them more seriously (Derrida 2005a, Part II).

Autonomy: ‘not yet’ or ‘to come’?

The upshot of the argument thus far is that the distinction between provision-ality and conclusiveness can only be rationalised by suppressing disagree-ment and uncertainty. Provisionality extends to the provisional/conclusivedistinction, and this is not for a lack of agreement and certainty that may beovercome in the future. In this sense, it is not that agreement and certaintyhave ‘not yet’ been achieved; rather, they will remain ‘to come’ (

á-venir

), touse a phrase from Derrida (2005a, pp. 86–92). That is, we will never be ableto overcome disagreement, uncertainty and imperfectness. We will not oneday, even if only in theory, reach agreement and certainty, and so we will notreach a final and fixed distinction between provisional and conclusive. Simi-larly, imperfectness may lead us to generalise provisionality. ‘There are noconclusive political answers’, Ellis (2005, p. 185) writes, ‘all political right isprovisional’: ‘everything is always at least potentially on the political table’(Ellis 2008, p. 150). The reason is that politics and political institutions arealways imperfect (Ellis 2005, p. 63, 2008, pp. 79f, 112, 116). However, ifimperfectness is constitutive, then provisionality is constitutive too: it isprovisionality all the way down.

These points also apply to ideals such as autonomy. For Ellis, autonomymay sometimes be best served by not insisting that it must be realised imme-diately, even if we must also act so as to ‘always leave open the possibilityof entering into a rightful condition’ (Kant 1996, p. 485, quoted in Ellis2008, p. 112). I will argue that autonomy is provisional in a more radicalsense than this.

First, however abstract or concrete, any definition of autonomy is likelyto give rise to empirical and normative disagreements over the definition orover the necessary conditions of autonomy. This is so even if we are onlytalking about agency and plurality or the possibility of moral argument. Thesedisagreements should lead us to treat autonomy as provisional.

Secondly, there is a certain ‘freedom’ in the concept of autonomy whichmeans that it will never be completely stable or determined (compare Derrida2005a, p. 25). This is due to the fact that autonomy means that citizens mustrule themselves, what Ellis refers to as substantive self-rule. To the extent thatthis self-rule extends to autonomy and its implications, this leaves autonomyas an open-ended concept that cannot be unequivocally defined. There may

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be disagreements about autonomy, its definition and implications; there maybe uncertainty about the effects of different institutions on autonomy; andeven if we had agreement and certainty, self-rule would still have to respondto changing circumstances. As a result, as a concept and an ideal, autonomyis destabilised. Thereby the ability of autonomy to provide guidance for us islimited; the ideal of autonomy is blurred around the edges where things getdifficult and where we may need the guidance the most.

Thirdly, autonomy is marked by what Derrida calls ‘autoimmunity’,whereby the only way to guarantee autonomy is to take away from it (2005a,pp. 33–41). This is analogous to what happens when constitutional democracybinds present and future generations constitutionally. And it is analogous tothe case when someone suspends the democratic process in order to savedemocracy from those who use democracy to overturn it, as was the case inAlgeria in 1992 and with Musharaf in Pakistan more recently (Derrida 2005a,p. 30f; compare Ellis 2008, p. 161, note 1). We are pulled in two directionsat once. On the one hand, we must protect autonomy against threats, includingthe threat of someone autonomously opting for paternalism. On the other hand,that kind of threat comes from what we value in autonomy,

viz.

the ability andfreedom to choose one’s own future, and so we are also pulled in the directionof opening ourselves up to that threat. The risk is simultaneously the chance.As a result, the distinction between autonomy and paternalism is blurred.Autonomy is only possible as impossible, as always-already interrupted, andthus as ‘to come’ (Derrida 2005b, pp. 86–92).

A possible objection is that autonomy in the Kantian tradition is

rational

self-legislation. This puts limitations on the exercise of autonomy, but thoselimitations are rational. We can see Ellis’s theory of provisionality as oneattempt at explicating those limitations, for instance when she argues that itis possible to distinguish non-paternalist conditions and constraints frompaternalistic ones (see e.g. Ellis 2008, pp. 30f). However, this line of argumentrequires that reason (or ‘rational’) has been defined, yet this assumes what hasto be shown, namely the

rational

limits of self-legislation. The attempt at self-foundation of autonomy – whereby one reconstructs its conditions of possi-bility from within – cannot succeed. This is not to say that reason (orautonomy) can be reduced to something else, for instance power; the decon-struction of reason does not take place from a place opposed to reason, but onthe limits of reason, or where someone seeks to establish those limits.

The ‘to come’ of autonomy can also be understood in terms of what Derridarefers to as a tension between conditionality and unconditionality. Autonomyis conditioned – limited in order to secure it – in the name of autonomy. Sinceconditions are put on autonomy in the name of autonomy, these conditionsopen themselves to contestation in the name of autonomy at the very momentwhen they are posited as necessary for autonomy. In this sense, we can talkof an unconditional autonomy that always exceeds, and thereby relativises, aconditional autonomy. However, (unconditional) autonomy only ‘is’ through

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conditional articulations or instantiations of it, whether in the form of an idealor a practice of autonomy. This is why (unconditional) autonomy is ‘to come’(

à-venir

) rather than ‘to be’, even if only in the future (

avenir

). Understoodin this way, autonomy is a historical principle through and through. Any(conditional) autonomy falls short of (unconditional) autonomy, and theunconditional always hovers above the conditional as a question mark; anymove towards autonomy also consists in taking away from it.

If the Derridean argument is correct, then autonomy is provisional in thesense of ‘to come’ because the condition of possibility of autonomy is itsinterruption. Therefore autonomy is not a stable or fixed horizon that we mayapproach to a greater or lesser degree. Again this undermines the ability ofautonomy to act as a guidepost. The tension between unconditionality andconditionality must be negotiated. What this means is that autonomy cannotprovide us with a straightforward rule to follow. Instead we must each timeinvent what autonomy means and implies, which does not mean that we startfrom scratch each time, only that autonomy cannot provide a fixed horizon orfoundation. What is more, we can no longer be content with asking how,given that we want to ‘leave open the possibility of …entering a rightfulcondition’ (Ellis 2008, p. 112, quoting Kant 1996, p. 485), particular practicesand institutions make this possible. The problem solving cannot be dissoci-ated from world (or better: problem) disclosure, because problem solving alsoinvolves (re)articulation of the ideals to be reached or problems to beaddressed, and this is so whether or not we think the ideal can be reached orthe problem solved. In other words, the use of hypothetical imperatives(‘if…then’) is problematical, because neither the ‘if…’ nor the relationship(‘if…then’) is immune to disagreement, uncertainty and imperfectness, whichare constitutive. What we have are two different conceptions of politics: onewhere the focus is on norms and problem solving (Kantian constructivism),and another where the focus is on aporias, contestation and resignification(Derridean deconstruction).

Autonomy, then, is not a concept or ideal about which we can say that ithas not yet been realised but will be so at some point in the future. Rather,autonomy is ‘to come’, not just deferred but aporetic. It is not a presence,whether as its realisation sometime in the future or as a hard kernel that tran-scends its particular conditional instantiations. What we have are particularanticipations and instantiations of autonomy, for instance the definition Ellisputs forward with its particular implications. Those anticipations go hand inhand with provisionality. It is because they are only anticipations and as suchprovisional, that it is possible to contest them; and it is because of provision-ality in the sense of ‘to come’ that we can only anticipate and that we mustremain content with anticipating (compare Ellis 2004, p. 367 on anticipation).It is provisionality and contestability all the way down.

The provisionality and contestability are permanent because imperfection,disagreement and uncertainty will not one day disappear. Ellis (2008, p. 150)

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writes: ‘Provisional theory contends that the facts of agency and plurality leadto a politics of permanent contestation.’

3

I agree. But provisionality and contes-tation are only permanent if imperfection, uncertainty and disagreement areineradicable features of politics. In short, they are only permanent if we under-stand provisionality in terms of ‘to come’ rather than ‘not yet’, and this is wheremy argument differs from Ellis’s, and where deconstruction differs fromKantian critical theory. Thus, my claim about provisionality is twofold: first,that the provisional/conclusive distinction as well as the ideal of autonomy arethemselves provisional; and, secondly, that we should understand provision-ality in terms of the Derridean notion of ‘to come’ rather than as ‘not yet’.

However, this does not mean that the ideal of autonomy is empty or mean-ingless. For instance, this ideal makes certain discourses possible, for instanceabout slavery, and to a greater or lesser extent organises those discourses. Nordoes it mean that autonomy must be rejected and cannot be affirmed.Although undercutting the status autonomy has within Kantian politicalthought, the argument here does not imply the outright rejection of autonomy.Rather, I took as my starting point the very principles affirmed by Ellis, ofwhich autonomy is the most important. The deconstructive move does notconsist in opposing – diametrically and from the outside – autonomy or provi-sionality, but to try their limits in order to articulate an alternative, in this casean alternative understanding of provisionality. Even if it may be an under-standing of provisionality that Ellis may not agree with, its articulation startedwith one foot inside Ellis’s own discourse on provisionality.

In addition, since autonomy is provisional, it can only – and must – beanticipated.

4

Since autonomy is not realised in the present, and since it willnot be so in the future either, it can only be anticipated; but it is also the casethat it must be anticipated because it only ‘is’ through these anticipations ofit. It is constituted in this way through the anticipations or articulations of it,and the ideal is not independent of those anticipations of it.

5

The anticipationsdo not simply reflect an already established principle of autonomy in aconstative mode, but also have a performative dimension and are constitutiveof what they anticipate. If we affirm autonomy, or just want to debate it, wemust anticipate what it means. We must start from a (provisional) definitionof it, make (provisional) assumptions about it, and so forth. From the verybeginning, we are working with a definition of the ideal of autonomy, and,however vague, that definition will necessarily limit our discussions of auton-omy, taking us in one direction rather than another. In this way, autonomy isalways discursively framed and articulated in one way or the other. The trickis then to institutionalise the provisionality and contestability of the differentarticulations of autonomy.

There is an important potential objection to the argument presented here.Ellis notes that Kant is often thought of as a philosopher of abstract moralprinciples with little relevance for the complexity and messiness of politicallife. She notes, however, that Kant’s political philosophy engages with the

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many complexities of politics, for instance, war (Ellis 2005, pp. 1–10, 2008,pp. 2–15). Indeed, according to Ellis, provisionality is a way for Kant tobring ideal and reality closer to one another. On that basis, Ellis may objectthat my argument is based on a false starting point because it starts from adiscussion of unconditional and absolute ideals, here the ideal of autonomy.This is the argument of Marguerite La Caze (2007) who reads Derridathrough Kant. Although La Caze is less Kantian and more Derridean thanEllis, their arguments converge in their conclusions on this point.

La Caze notes that Derrida finds aporias in concepts such as hospitality,forgiveness and autonomy, and that he finds a gap between these concepts intheir unconditional and their negotiated, conditional versions. However,Derrida does not tell us how to bridge the gap between ideal and reality, andso the ideals risk becoming impotent in the face of real world problems (LaCaze 2007, p. 798). What is needed, La Caze argues, is to distinguishwhat are non-negotiable ideals and then translate them into institutions (2007,p. 796f). However, for Derrida, the unconditional and the conditional are notjust heterogeneous, but also mutually imbricated, in the sense that, forinstance, autonomy is always already conditional and negotiated, while irre-ducible to any particular negotiation of it. Autonomy is not ‘potentially nego-tiated’, as La Caze puts it, but always-already negotiated (2007, p. 796).Autonomy does not and cannot exist in its purity or apart from its particularnegotiations. It ‘is’ only through particular articulations, and therefore itcannot ‘be’ as full or complete. The problem of bridging the gap betweenideal and reality does not arise for Derrida, or at least not in the shape thatKant, Ellis and La Caze give to it, because there ‘is’ no ideal that needs to benegotiated and applied. We do not have – not even as a critical ideal – anindependent ideal of autonomy. All we have are particular negotiations – orbetter: articulations – of autonomy, and there is no single ideal of autonomythat can function as a guiding post. Instead we have a plurality of articulationsof autonomy, none of which can be the last word on autonomy.

Discursive dynamics

Context matters, and that is one of Ellis’s reasons for turning to Kant’s polit-ical philosophy and his argument for provisional right because she believesthat it is sensitive to the problem of applying ideals in a non-ideal world.Context is also important for Ellis in that it frames how we see issues and solu-tions to those issues. For instance, with reference to Koselleck, Pocock andMansbridge, she argues that political concepts do not just reflect the world,but form part of political action (Ellis 2004, pp. 361–364, 2008, pp. 34–43).She captures this point with the notion of ‘discursive dynamics’, which refersto what can be said and what will be meaningful in any given context (Ellis2008, p. 28). Thus, in the context of a discussion of deliberative democracy,Ellis argues that we must examine the conditions of possibility for citizens to

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make use of public reason rather than just assuming this ability, and shesuggests various ways of moving discursive dynamics in the direction ofenhancing agency and plurality (2008, pp. 43–45).

The notion of discursive dynamics has implications for how we thinkabout provisionality. It is possible to radicalise Ellis’s use of discursivedynamics in a way that goes hand in hand with the radicalisation of the notionof provisionality suggested above.

Discursive frameworks can be more or less open or closed. In somecontexts, it is difficult to think, let alone act, against the dominant discourse,as is for instance the case with liberal democracy in the West today. In othercontexts, there may be competing discourses, as for instance in the case ofabortion in the US. Discourses may change in response to dislocations; so thecurrent financial crisis may deal a blow to the otherwise hegemonic neo-liberaldiscourse. Here I follow Laclau and Mouffe (1985, pp. 105–114) who under-stand discourse as a meaningful totality made up of differentially situatedmoments, a totality that is more or less closed. Ideals such as autonomy arearticulated within particular discourses or discursive frameworks. Discoursesare constitutive of ideals, problems, solutions, and so on. To say that discoursesare constitutive of ideals is to say that we cannot work towards those idealsbefore they have been articulated within a particular discourse. On this view,there is nothing that is not discursively framed in one way or another.

This notion of discourse has two implications for provisionality. First, wecan think of the anticipation of, for instance, autonomy in terms of discursivearticulation. We have a competition between different discursive articulationsof the ideal of autonomy as well as discursive articulations of competingideals. In normative terms, the aim is to institutionalise spaces within whichdifferent discursive articulations can compete, even if those spaces will them-selves be discursive and, as such, not neutral.

Secondly, even if I have argued that we should think of autonomy and theprovisional/conclusive distinction as provisional, that is, even if I have arguedthat it is provisionality all the way down, this does not mean that there willbe complete openness in any given situation. Discursive framing preciselyimplies that any given context will be partly open and partly closed. Or, in theterms used above, we cannot start discussing or contesting autonomy withoutsome anticipation of what it means. We find ourselves in a partly sedimenteddiscursive terrain, which makes certain articulations more possible and likelythan others. Thus, although provisionality

qua

‘to come’ is an ineradicablecondition of politics that can either be acknowledged or suppressed, we cannotbut take some things as given or conclusive at any one time. We might saythat provisionality is an ontological feature of politics, but with the importantcaveat that there is always

some

closure and conclusiveness, although no

particular

closure or conclusiveness is necessary. Thus, at the ontic orempirical level, there will always be a combination of provisionality andconclusiveness, openness and closure.

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If we did not bracket provisionality, then meaning, practices and institutionswould be impossible; this is also the case here, where I have to assume thatautonomy has a certain meaning in order to be able to argue that we shouldtake autonomy – including what it means – as provisional. It is then the taskof the political theorist to analyse the ways in which provisionality is bracketed.

Normatively speaking, and given the affirmation of agency and plurality,one must open up sedimented ways of thinking about, for instance, autonomy.But this opening up will itself involve some closure; for instance, it mightinvolve the exclusion, in some form or other, of those who want to close downthe contestation of autonomy (as we define it). Contestation is itself madepossible, but also limited, by certain discursive formations. Furthermore, sinceno particular discursive closure is natural, but always contingent and hencepolitical, it becomes a matter of which closure one prefers to others, rather thansimply a matter of opposing openness to closure. To insist on provisionalityall the way down is not naïve or idealistic. The argument precisely assumesthe partial closure – and bias, exclusion and violence – that will be a part ofany context. On the other hand, this does not imply the blanket acceptance ofany particular closure because no particular closure is necessary and, as such,beyond contestation.

But what about the argument that it is provisionality all the way down –is that itself provisional? The answer must be yes, because the argumentabout provisionality cannot claim to stand above provisionality, or to standoutside any particular discourse (Connolly 1993, pp. 226–231). If anything,the argument for provisionality

qua

‘to come’ can be seen as a discourse onprovisionality grafted onto Ellis’s discourse on provisionality.

The limits of provisional politics?

What are the political implications of provisionality? Given that provisionalitymeans that we treat ideals, institutions and policies as provisional; and giventhe affirmation of autonomy (and agency and plurality) which means that citi-zens themselves, rather than political theorists, must take decisions aboutideals, institutions and policies – given this, Ellis (2008, p. 19) is right to notethat provisional political theory cannot guarantee a ‘correct’ outcome. Giventhe openness that provisionality is supposed to represent, the outcome ofprovisional politics must remain an open question. That said, Ellis’s discus-sion of the politics of species preservation and extinction is a useful startingpoint for a discussion of one of the political implications of provisionality.Here I am not interested in preservation politics as such, but in drawing outone of the structural features of provisional politics.

Recall that, for Ellis, the aim of ‘provisional theory is to expand ratherthan foreclose the sphere of political possibilities as much as possible’ (2008,p. 120). ‘Keep things open!’ might be the motto of provisional politics. With-out the openness of provisionality, there is no room for agency and plurality.

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That is so, but only with an important qualification which changes the senseof the imperative to keep things open. One must also close down possibilities;indeed, as I have argued above and will expand upon here, one necessarilydoes so. One must do so in order to keep (other) possibilities open, and inorder to keep politics open in certain ways rather than others.

Ellis rightly points out that, in the context of species preservation, provi-sionality inevitably leads to extinction in the long run (2008, pp. 116–123,142–146). There is an essential asymmetry between preservation and extinc-tion, because the former can be reversed whereas the latter cannot. If wedecide to preserve, we have the possibility to continue that policy or reverseit in the future. If we extinguish, we cannot turn back the clock on extinction,at least not with the technology available today. ‘Because species loss is irre-versible’, she writes, ‘the provisional commitment to agency and plurality inpractice amounts to a preemptive substantive decision against species preser-vation.’ (Ellis 2008, p. 144) The aim of provisionality is to enhance the polit-ical possibilities available to citizens, including future citizens. But in the caseof species preservation, there is an inherent limit to this, because provisionalpolitics tends towards extinction and, thus, limiting the possibilities availablefor the future.

Ellis concludes that there are inbuilt limits to ‘provisional politics, evenpolitics itself’ (2008, p. 123, also p. 124). These limits are due to the fact thatsome policies are irreversible in the sense that one policy option (extinction)undermines the possibility of another policy option (preservation) in thefuture. I have no quarrel with this. The issue that emerges, however, is howto respond to this situation, and here I believe that the deconstructiveperspective is better suited.

We are facing a paradox: on the one hand, provisionality leads toconclusiveness and to limiting agency and plurality; on the other hand, wemay be able to secure agency and plurality in the future through conclusivepolicies today, for instance by excluding extinction as a policy option (Ellis2008, pp. 143–146). In either case, there is no guarantee that we will besuccessful in guaranteeing agency and plurality in the future. In fact, itseems that whether we pursue agency and plurality through provisional orconclusive policies, these policies will always also limit agency and plural-ity. Thus, we are not facing a choice between either closure or openness,either provisionality or conclusiveness. Rather, it is always a matter of bothclosure and openness, both provisionality and conclusiveness, and conse-quently of more or less closure and openness, provisionality and conclusive-ness, and this is so in terms of both means (policies) and the effects onewishes to achieve. In other words, the condition of possibility of opennessand provisionality is closure and conclusiveness. In terms of the analysis inthe previous section: there is always

some

closure, never complete open-ness. It is then a question of negotiating between closure and openness,provisionality and conclusiveness: what options do we want to retain in the

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future? What options do we think are necessary for citizens’ freedom in thefuture? And so on.

I believe this is a trait of all (provisional) politics and not just the politicsof species preservation. Here we can imagine a continuum of more or lessreversible policies. Species extinction would be placed towards one end of thecontinuum, at the end where provisionality unavoidably leads to less agencyand plurality. Other cases would be different. Take for instance the case ofglobal warming (see Ellis 2008, pp. 115f, 118f). Here policy may have effectsthat cannot be undone, but these effects do not necessarily exclude the possi-bility of reversing the policy. So we can imagine a policy not to do anythingabout global warming, the effect of which would be that low-lying areaswould be swallowed by the rising sea level, but this does not exclude a rever-sal of the policy itself. However, this is only so in a qualified sense. Pursuingthe particular policy in question inevitably has consequences for how easy itis to pursue a different policy in the future because policies get sedimented ininstitutions and habits. Even if, in theory, it would be possible to change thepolicy in the future, it is here a matter of policies being reversible with greateror lesser difficulty.

The argument so far is not necessarily at odds with Ellis’s Kantianperspective, because she could argue that it is possible to distinguish thoseconditions that may be constraints, but enable agency and plurality (i.e.,autonomy) and do so in a non-paternalist fashion (see e.g. Ellis 2005, p. 182,2008, p. 30f). That argument rests on the ability to distinguish between twothings: first, the conditions of making choices and, secondly, making choices.Importantly, on this view, creating the conditions for making choices cannotbe characterised as one choice among others because it is precisely thoughtto be the condition of possibility of making choices – hence why they areenabling and non-paternalist. However, as I argued above, this argumentrequires that we bracket disagreement and uncertainty about the ideal (e.g.,autonomy) and the conditions of its realisation, but this would go against thewhole thesis of provisionality (agency and plurality, etc.), even in Ellis’sKantian version.

Provisional politics, then, does not consist simply in moving towardsopenness, autonomy, and so on. Rather, it consists in the negotiation of open-ness and closure, of reversibility and irreversibility, and of provisionality andconclusiveness (compare Ellis 2008, p. 165, note 95) – and this so without theguidance of fixed or universal ideals.

Conclusion: political theory in a provisional mode

For Ellis, there are things that provisional theory can do and things it cannotdo. Provisional political theory cannot provide foundations, although it canexamine ‘abstract conditions of political interaction – agency and plurality’(2008, p. 21). Provisional theory cannot provide a-contextual, ahistorical or

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universal justifications or policy prescriptions. It cannot legislate, because thatmust be left to citizens themselves, but the theorist can criticise existing insti-tutions and suggest new ones that encourage autonomy. In short, (provisional)political theorists cannot decide particular issues, but must ‘limit themselvesto establishing the conditions under which real people acting by their ownlights may collectively determine their political fates’ (Ellis 2005, p. 182, also2008, p. 4f). This is why Ellis believes that her theory of provisional politicsis a second-, and not a first-order theory. The alternative to provisionality –conclusiveness – leads to moral rigidity, paternalism and reification (Ellis2005, pp. 75, 152). Certain things are not covered by provisionality, however,including autonomy, slavery and the institution of private property. Othersare, including abortion, medical rationing and the particular form that privateproperty can take (see e.g. Ellis 2004, p. 366).

This has implications for what political theory can do. I accept the limita-tions Ellis puts on provisional political theory: it cannot provide foundations,and I would argue that one way to make sense of this limitation on politicaltheory is to say that foundations as well as critical horizons are provisional,and that any attempt to establish foundations should be treated with scepti-cism. I would go further, however, because I am sceptical about the force ofarguments that rely on hypothetical imperatives and non-contradiction. Polit-ical theory can shed light on the conditions of realising autonomy and on thelinks between ideals and specific practices, but this should be understood interms of discursive articulations, not hypothetical imperatives. Paradoxes, oraporias, are inherent to political concepts and practices, and they cannot berationally resolved, only negotiated in different ways. What political theorycan do is to shed light on those different negotiations or articulations: whatnegotiations are possible or likely? What are their (likely) results? How canone press against the discursive limits of the present? And so on.

In one sense, then, Ellis is not sufficiently provisional because she doesnot extend provisionality to the provisional/conclusive distinction or toautonomy, and because she thinks of provisionality in terms of ‘not yet’rather than ‘to come’. However, it is not simply a matter of more or lessprovisionality because provisional politics is always limited by closure andconclusiveness. Thus, it is not just a matter of extending the limits of provi-sionality, but also of how one conceptualises provisionality and its limits, ofhow one draws the limits, and of how one negotiates between provisionalityand conclusiveness.

Ellis argues that Kant’s political philosophy contains a theory of provisionalrights. Thus, Kant is more than the philosopher of conclusive moral impera-tives. Other theorists who, according to Ellis (2008, p. 15), write in a provisionalmode include Thucydides, Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, MichaelOakeshott and Michel Foucault. With George Klosko, Ellis (2008, p. 15) alsoidentifies an element of provisionality in Plato, that ‘most conclusive ofpolitical philosophers, with his doctrine of forms and his blueprint for the ideal

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republic’. Although the conclusive elements dominate in Plato’s thought,discursive reason supplements the absolute knowledge of the philosopherkings, thus creating an opening for provisionality (Klosko 1984, p. 193).

6

In another context, Ellis (2004, p. 369) notes that ‘[t]he line betweenprovisional and conclusivist theories is admittedly a fine one’. She placesHabermas on the side of conclusive political theorists and Gutmann andThompson on the side of provisionalism. However, there are also provisionalelements in Habermas, such as his insistence on the fallibilism of the rationalreconstructions of the presuppositions of discursive reason. Likewise, thereare conclusive elements in Gutmann and Thompson (2004), for instancewhen they affirm a certain form of discursive reason as the only legitimateone. Thus I am not convinced that a line can be drawn so easily betweenprovisional and conclusive theorists.

7

There are both provisional and conclusive elements in Ellis’s work, justas there are in those other theorists she characterises as provisional theorists.I would argue that the same is the case with the theorists she characterises asconclusivist, among them Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx (Ellis 2008,p. 15).

8

And I would add that we should read these theorists – ‘provisional’and ‘conclusive’ alike – according to how they simultaneously allow provi-sionality a place within their texts and at the same time attempt to manage andlimit its effects, and according to how they establish the distinction betweenprovisionality and conclusiveness.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Marina Prentoulis for her comments on a draft of the paper. I presented anearlier version of the paper in the ‘Political Normativity: Conceptual and NormativeIssues’ workshop at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Lisbon, 14–19 April 2009.

Notes

1. Kant is not always clear on this. For instance,

Perpetual Peace

(1991) and his

Rechtslehre

(1996) differ on the possibility of realising a perfect internationalunion (Ellis 2005, p. 135).

2. Elsewhere Ellis notes (with Kant) that provisionality is not an excuse forbracketing moral judgements in politics and cannot be used as an excuse to letinjustices go on indefinitely (Ellis 2005, p. 132f).

3. Ellis (2004, p. 357, emphasis added) writes in another place: ‘However, and, Iwould add,

fortunately

, political theorists have not reached even provisionalconsensus on which set of philosophical premises might be most authoritative,even for a particular time, much less universally.’

4. For a useful discussion of provisional (

vorläufig

) and anticipating (

vorlaufen

) inHeidegger, see Vedder (2005).

5. This is also why provisionality

qua

‘to come’ neither absolves us of responsibilityfor improving things nor means that we can postpone decisions about autonomy.Instead provisionality as ‘to come’ implies urgency (Derrida 2005a, p. 29). Aswell, anticipation here implies precipitation.

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6. For Derrida’s take on Plato and the ambiguities of Plato’s notion of knowledge,see Derrida 1981.

7. See also Ellis (2004, p. 366) for Ellis’s critique of an example of undueconclusivist theorising in Gutmann and Thompson (2004).

8. For ‘provisionalist’ readings (in the Derridean sense of ‘to come’) of Rousseauand Marx respectively, see Derrida (1997) and (1994). On ‘provisionality’ in theMarxist tradition, see Laclau and Mouffe (1985, chapters 1–2). For a ‘provision-alist’ reading of Habermas, see Thomassen 2007. None of these readings bracketthe ‘conclusivist’ elements in the authors; instead they examine the ways in whichthe authors negotiate the relationship between provisionality and conclusiveness,contingency and necessity, and so on.

Notes on contributor

Lasse Thomassen is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory in the Department of Politicsat Queen Mary, University of London, and García Pelayo Fellow at Centro de Estu-dios Políticos y Constitucionales in Madrid. His research focuses on tolerancediscourse, the relationship between Derrida and Habermas and theories of radicaldemocracy. He is the author of

Deconstructing Habermas

and

Habermas: A Guidefor the Perplexed

, and the editor of

The Derrida-Habermas Reader

and

RadicalDemocracy

.

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