Europe Anti-Power (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | Michael Loriaux | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

The EU seeks to define a role for itself in power politics while remaining firm in its rejection of power politics. In order to make power compatible with the European project, EU debate has appended a number of progressive adjectives to the word &quote;power,&quote; adjectives like &quote;civilian&quote; and &quote;normative,&quote; among others. This book asks what is power, such that it can be modified, tamed, and modulated by adjectives, yet remain &quote;powerful&quote;? Loriaux passes EU debate on power through the mill of phenomenological and post-phenomenological analysis, juxtaposing it against writings by Machiavelli, Agamben, Thucydides, Nietzsche, Patocka, and Levinas. The book locates power in &quote;power/play,&quote; the theatrical, staged representation of threat that generates aesthetic effect and undecidability. Power/play endows the word &quote;power&quote; with perlocutionary force, which the adjectives of EU &quote;qualified&quote; power actually enhance rather than moderate. Loriaux argues that EU discourse on power therefore risks inviting EU &quote;exceptionalism,&quote; or risks lapsing into an expression of EU ressentiment, rather than advancing a new, progressive understanding of &quote;power.&quote; If European Union is to remain steadfast in its opposition to power politics, it must represent itself as &quote;anti-power.&quote; This book will be of interest to those who work in the area of EU foreign policy, as well as to those who have a more general theoretical interest in the concept of power.