Liberal dilemmas and the concept of politics

摘要

Since the 1980s liberal political theorists have become increasingly interested in the concepts of politics and the political. This raises interesting questions about the role played by the concept of politics in contemporary liberal ideologies, why so many professional liberal theorists have now become interested in the concept of politics, and how they understand this concept. I concentrate on the work of Rawls, Honig and Connolly and argue that despite coming from different ideological backgrounds, these theorists share a surprisingly similar understanding of politics as a concept that can be opposed both to force and philosophy. Exploration of the reasons why they adopt this peculiar understanding of politics reveals some of the questions and assumptions that structure contemporary liberal academic discourse and distinguish it from earlier liberal ideologies.