Adam Burgos, Bucknell University

“Neither War nor Politics: On the Meaning and Potential of Democratic Engagement”

This paper focuses on a circumstance partway between a state of war and a state of politics: partial politics. Each refers to how reasons and justifications function politically. A state of war exists where political reasons are seen as unnecessary by the acting political authority; justification is simply assumed. A state of politics, conversely, occurs when authority assumes that such reasons are needed and that the response of the community to whom they are given matters. Partial politics names the blurred line between the two that emerges when historical injustice significantly impinges upon contemporary political life. In foregrounding the historical and contextual aspects of concepts like legitimacy, justice, and democracy, partial politics reveals a grey zone in political life in which political reason giving becomes opaque. Partial politics results in conflicts between modes of political engagement – elections, civil disobedience, violent resistance – that may be impossible to resolve without overcoming existing social arrangements.