%0 Journal Article
%T The Politics of Presentation: On Badiou as Reader of Rousseau
%A Edvard Marko Lorkovic
%J Cosmos and History : the Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy
%D 2012
%I Cosmos and History Publishing Co-op.
%X This paper explores the distinction between representative and presentative conceptions of politics in the works of Alain Badiou and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Analyzing Badiou¡¯s reading of Rousseau¡¯s Social Contract, the paper shows that, contrary to a common view, Rousseau is not a normative theorist of legitimacy; instead, he is a political ontologist, one who thinks the being of politics rather than its norms. In this role, Rousseau defends a politics of presentation, a conception of politics as essentially creative rather than imitative. Against a view of politics as a representation of natural, divine or moral order, Rousseau¡¯s political ontology maintains that politics exists only so long as order is created, out of nothing as it were. In short, politics cannot be representational; it exists only as long as it is present, not represented. For Badiou and Rousseau, representation is not necessarily illegitimate or unjust; it is simply not political.
%K Alain Badiou
%K Jean-Jacques Rousseau
%K Political Ontology
%K Metapolitics
%K Representation
%K Social Contract Theory
%U http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/240/436