Political Responsibility

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned to ethics to theorize politics in what seems to be an increasingly depoliticized age. Yet the move toward ethics has obscured the ongoing value of political responsibility and the vibrant life it represents as an effective response to power. Sounding the alarm for those who care about robust forms of civic engagement, this book fights for a new conception of political responsibility that meets the challenges of today's democratic practice. Antonio Y. Vazquez-Arroyo argues against the notion that modern predicaments of power can only be addressed ethically or philosophically through pristine concepts that operate beyond the political realm. By returning to the political, the individual is reintroduced to the binding principles of participatory democracy and the burdens of acting and thinking as a member of a collective.