A-Democracy: The West Between Populism and Neoliberalism

By Emanuela Fornari

Fronters of populist politics confront neoliberal decline, revealing a post-hegemony centered on desire and bodies.

Starting from today's climate dominated by the different political-media populisms that tread the contemporary political scene, the volume examines the rise and what is believed to be the current fall of the so-called "neo-liberalism". The failure of the multicultural paradigm centered on the Lockean concept of tolerance is analyzed through the theses on civil and social dynamics of de-democratization developed by political scientists such as Wendy Brown. In this perspective, Fornari proposes an original concept of post-hegemony, which - going beyond Gramsci and his modern followers - focuses on the Subject of desire and enjoyment of Freudian and Lacanian memory, with its drives incompatible with the systemic grid of contemporary hypercapitalism. Lastly, after a counter-current analysis of violence and terrorism in the globalized world, the volume presents the paradigm of a "democracy of bodies" - based on Judith Butler's work - as an alternative and salvation to the decline of the "political" in the present era.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8869773353
• ISBN13: 9788869773358
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Mimesis
• Length: 138 Pages