Democracy and Event

Elaine Stavro is Professor Emerita of Political Theory in the Department of Political Studies at Trent University. She has written numerous articles on Simone de Beauvoir, most recently “Why Thoughtfulness Matters Black Lives Matter and Elsewhere,” forthcoming (2023), in Simone de Beauvoir: A Toolkit for the 21st Century and published Emancipatory Thinking: The Political Thought of Simone De Beauvoir (2018). Her research interest focuses on feminist thinking, continental philosophy, radical democratic theory, and the intersection of deliberation and affect, as reflected in “SARS and Alterity: The Toronto-China Binary” in Political Science (2014).

List of figures

Acknowledgments

1 Theoretical perspectives on democratic sensibilities and democratic practices

Vital materialism: ontologies of lively materiality countering social determinism

Populist thinkers: turning to the political and away from the social

Navigating novelty and indeterminacy – embodied creativity versus the post-human

Rethinking emotion and affect: challenging autonomous affect

The monstrous event

2 Engendering fear and racism during the SARS epidemic: a defi cit in deliberative thinking

The event: the impact of fear

Debates that frame this catastrophe

Abjection: scapegoating the Chinese

The Orientalist thesis – essentializing the Asian – linking negative affect to Social Othering

Media management of the crisis – the pairing of the war on terror and bioterror

Representations and responses to the SARS crisis: China versus Toronto

From fear to disbelief: challenging WHO’s travel advisory

Attending to emotion’s material effects

SARS effects on deliberation and democratic decision-making

Toward a more reliable account of the catastrophe: material conditions – mega slums and global livestock production

Post-SARS

3 Burning inferno: the Grenfell Tower fire in the era of austerity

The event: affective representations overwhelm facts

Confronting vital materialists’ and populists’ thinking on affect and emotion

Social weightlessness

Fostering solidarity: a tangled event that produced multiple narratives and feelings

Challenging earlier narratives – the case for investigative journalism

Applying vital materialism to the event: confederate agency and human responsibility

A new collective subject fails to emerge

Attending to larger frames of reference

The effects of Brexit – ignoring economic interests

The power of neoliberal governing strategies – the demise of democratic practices

4 Students’ passionate participation: a democratic movement in the digital age

The terrifying event

The public sphere in the age of internet and social media – the prospect for democratic opinion formation

MOFL’s success: cultivating affective solidarity and pursuing strategic actions

Differences in social powers: March for Our Lives versus Black Lives Matter

Collaboration across differences: practice surmounts theoretical problems

Striving for a leaderless movement: achievements and compromises

Strategic actions in the face of a history of defeats

The government’s response or lack thereof

Gun culture: another impediment to gun control

Institutional and cultural differences matter

5 President Trump’s response to the COVID pandemic: a ective ideology and authoritarian mismanagement

The turn to facts in a world of fear: a veneer of certainty

Eschewing scientific expertise and journalistic critique

Social Othering strategies: blaming the democrats, China, and WHO

Cultivating a divided and uninformed public: the effects of anti-science and anti-expert sentiments

Efforts to consolidate affective solidarity: “we are all in this together” #alonetogether

Trump’s populism: corporate freedom versus public well-being

Populist leadership: the allure of tough talk

Mishandling of COVID: the erosion of democratic procedures

Addendum

Thinking critically about the pandemic: why were we unprepared?

The promises and perils of the COVID catastrophe

6 The murder of George Floyd and the meteoric rise of Black Lives Matter: the success of an affectively rich event

Affective solidarity: the power of the event

The appearance of Black Lives Matter: a political movement in the digital age

Symbolic politics, celebrity support, performative activism – the process of emotional reorientation

Spontaneous affective events – dismantling statutes waiving public debate

Ambiguity of violence: triggering solidarity and undermining support

The counter-narratives of the alt-right: stoking up fear and loathing

Emotional reflexivity: the power of reason and good arguments

Transforming beliefs: raising awareness of systemic racism

Strategies and ideals of BLM – the complicated path toward instantiating democratic practices

Moving forward: a case for social democracy or billionaires’ charities?

Addendum

Conclusion

Index