Abstract
Both cultural nationalism and democratic theory seek to legitimate political power by rendering it compatible with the freedom of those over whom it is exercised, i.e., by appeal to a notion of collective self-rule. Both doctrines thus advance a self-referential theory of political legitimacy: their principle of legitimation refers right back to the very persons over whom political power is to be exercised. Since self-referential theories base legitimation in a collective self, they must necessarily combine the question of legitimation with the question of boundaries. The problem is that it is impossible to solve both problems together once it is assumed that the collectivity in question is in principle bounded. Cultural nationalism claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it authentically expresses the nation's pre-political culture, but it cannot fix the nation's cultural boundaries pre-politically. Hence the collapse into ethnic nationalism. The democratic theory of bounded popular sovereignty claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it expresses the people's will, but cannot itself legitimate the pre-political boundaries of the people it presupposes. Hence the collapse into cultural nationalism. Only a theory of unbounded popular sovereignty avoids this collapse of demos into nation into ethnos, but such a theory departs radically from traditional theory. It abandons the notion of a pre-politically constituted "will of the people," supports the formation of global democratic forums, and challenges the legitimacy of unilaterally controlled political boundaries.

Arash Abizadeh is associate professor in the Department of Political Science and associate member of the Department of Philosophy, McGill University, and specializes in contemporary political theory and the history of political philosophy. His research focuses on democratic theory and questions of identity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism; immigration and border control; and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, particularly Hobbes and Rousseau. He is currently finishing a book titled The Oscillations of Thomas Hobbes: Between Insight and the Will.

This lecture on Thursday, April 28 will follow two workshops, one on Monday, April 25 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM and one on Wednesday, April 27 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Both workshops will take place in Bldg. 260, room 252 (German Studies library). No RSVP is necessary.

About the Lecture:
Since the publication of his Critique of Cynical Reason (German original, 1983; English translation, 1988), Peter Sloterdijk has produced a philosophical body of work – and invented a new shape for the role of the public intellectual – that have given him a unique (perhaps even unprecedented) resonance in German culture. Bringing together, in an epistemologically innovative and always provocative way, discourses and impulses from traditions mainly going back to Nietzsche and Heidegger, Sloterdijk has become one of the most influential and insightful analysts of present-day western culture in its global context. His language and style have opened up surprising convergences between philosophy and literature. Both the content and the forms of his work have made thinkable a productive transformation of the Humanities and Arts inside and outside of the university.

In two workshops and a concluding lecture on the topic “Latency and Explicitness: Towards the Transformation of Metaphysics into General Immunology,” Peter Sloterdijk will address a topic that has been dealt with in several Stanford seminars and workshops over the past year.

The recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East represent one of the most dramatic global political developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  What factors and forces led to the sudden collapse of well-entrenched regimes and the emergence of democratic reform movements across a region long accustomed to hereditary succession and autocratic rule?  Does the current upheaval reflect unique circumstances in the Arab World?  Or should it be viewed in the wider context of governance issues and challenges that have arisen in Asian and other settings beyond North Africa and the Middle East?  As a governance specialist whose international career has spanned Arab and Asian societies, David Arnold will share his insights regarding these questions.  

David D. Arnold became the president of The Asia Foundation on January 1, 2011, after serving as the president of the American University in Cairo (AUC) for seven years. At AUC he superintended the construction of a new, state-of-the-art $400 million campus, including the region's largest English-language library; spearheaded a $125 million fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history; and oversaw academic innovations including AUC’s first-ever PhD program and master’s programs in education, biotechnology, gender studies, digital journalism, and refugee studies.  Under his leadership, AUC also expanded its continuing education and community outreach activities and created new scholarship opportunities for its students.  Mr. Arnold’s earlier career included six years as executive vice president of the Institute of International Education and more than ten years of service in the Ford Foundation including stints in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.  He earned his Master’s in Public Administration at Michigan State University following a BA from the University of Michigan.