政治理論家で方法論、言説分析、脱構築、市民権などを専門とするラッセ・トマセン（Lasse Thomassen）ロンドン大学クイーン・メアリ校教授が来日されます。
Professor Lasse Thomassen, BA (Copenhagen), MA, PhD (Essex)
氏はもともとエセックス大学に学び、ラクラウやムフを擁してきたいわゆる「エセックス学派」の若手代表格と見做されている人物です。研究は多岐にわたりますが、近年ではEuropean Journal of Political Theoryにおける「分析系と大陸系」の特集号の主幹を務めるなど、精力的に活動されています。
この度は大阪大学と東京大学で、それぞれシンポジウムおよび研究セミナーを開催する運びとなりました。皆様どうかご参加いただければ幸いです。
★シンポジウム（大阪大学）
11月8日(火) 14:30～18:30 阪大豊中キャンパス 豊中総合学館4F 講義室L5
“The People Goes to The Capitol: Democracy and Populism à la Jacques Derrida”
- その他報告者：
- 大場優志（名古屋大学法学研究科 博士後期課程）、大村一真（同志社大学法学研究科 博士後期課程）
- 討論者：
- 板倉圭佑（慶応義塾大学法学研究科 博士後期課程）
司会：村田陽（京都大学・日本学術振興会）
- 翌11/9（水）10:30-12:00にも、阪大豊中キャンパスにおいて、トマセン教授を交えて英語圏の政治理論の現状とそこでの出版等に関する意見交換会を開催予定です。
★研究セミナー（ハイフレックス開催）
11月12日(土) 14:00～16:00 東大駒場キャンパス18号館 4F コラボレーションルーム 2
“Deconstructing Sovereignty Discourse”
- 討論者：
- 仁科レン（東京大学総合文化研究科 博士課程）、長島晧平（慶應義塾大学法学研究科 博士後期課程）
司 会：馬路智仁（東京大学）
問い合わせ先：乙部延剛（大阪大学法学研究科）
n.otobe.law〇osaka-u.ac.jp (〇を@に変えてご送信ください)
（報告概要）
“The people goes to The Capitol: Democracy and populism à la Jacques Derrida”
Is populism a threat, a corrective, or the essence of democracy? What is the proper relationship between the people and the institutions? On 6 January 2021, the people went to The Capitol. They went there believing that the institutions had robbed the people of their will. What could possibly be the problem with the people appearing in the symbolic place of power? No doubt, they were an irrational and violent mob, but that has often been a way for the political elites to justify the exclusion of the common people from power. In the case of Trump and his supporters, the attack on The Capitol has become inscribed within an opposition between populism and democracy, with the mob as a threat to democracy and to representative institutions. My aim in this paper is not to decide the true nature of what happened at Capitol Hill, and on what side of the distinction between populism and democracy it falls. I want to use the attack on The Capitol to examine how an event like this becomes articulated in terms of the opposition between populism and democracy. I do so starting from Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction. Apart from a few scattered remarks, Derrida never wrote about what is, by now, one of the most important issues in contemporary democratic theory and political science: populism and its relation to (liberal) democracy. There have been precious few attempts to use deconstruction in the context of populism. Benjamin Arditi’s and Simon Tormey’s proposals to think – with Derrida – of populism as, respectively, the spectre and pharmakon of democracy are useful in that they highlight the ways in which the openness of democracy that we cherish implies an inherent risk. This speaks directly to debates in contemporary populism studies. With Derrida, I suggest that we can consider populism as an expression of the rogue character of democracy. There is something rogue about democracy because freedom is essential to it, to the extent that we must extend that freedom to our use of the concept of democracy. The question is: if democracy is rogue, can we distinguish the rogues roaming The Capitol as populist as opposed to democratic?
“Deconstructing Sovereignty Discourse”
The paper starts from Giorgio Agamben’s writings on Covid-19, where he argues that government responses to the pandemic are only the latest instances of the totalization of sovereign power. I use Derrida’s deconstruction of sovereignty discourse in his later works – especially Rogues and The Beast & the Sovereign – to challenge this view. I show that sovereignty is always at once unconditional and conditional, and that there is no place beyond sovereignty. With regard to the latter, I consider the university, international law and human rights, and democracy as alternatives to nation-state sovereignty. In each case, I show – with Derrida – that not only do these institutions and concepts involve sovereignty in some form, but in many cases the sovereignty takes the form of a freedom that we should struggle for. This allows me to contrast Derrida’s and Agamben’s approaches. The deconstruction of sovereignty discourse does not dissolve the distinction that Agamben and others make between sovereignty and freedom; rather, it makes us able to differentiate between different practices of sovereignty and within freedom. That kind of differentiation is useful when considering how governments have responded differently to the Covid-19 pandemic, exercising their sovereignty differently. It is also useful when considering alternatives – from anti-mask parties to mutual aid groups – articulated through a critique of state sovereignty. The differentiation makes it possible to develop a specifically progressive critique of sovereignty, rather than a critique of sovereignty as such.
共催
大阪大学大学院法学研究科、東京大学グローバル地域研究機構、科研費基盤研究(A)「「資本主義と民主主義の両立（不）可能性」の政治理論的研究」（研究代表・田村哲樹）、科研費基盤研究(B)「ロールズ政治哲学と政治・経済思想：２１世紀のリベラリズムをめざして」(研究代表・宇野重規)、科研費若手研究(B)「ポスト基礎付け主義時代におけるデモクラシーの行方：アゴニズムの民主主義論を中心に」（研究代表・山本圭）