Wolfgang Natter

Radical Democracy: Hegemony, Reason, Time and Space

Taking her present essay as my point of departure, I elaborate key aspects of Chantal Mouffes theorization of radical and plural democracy. In particular, I stress the importance of rearticulating hegemony, reason, and time and space for a theory of politics and the political commensurate with radical democracy.

Imagining Mitteleuropa: Conceptualisations of ‘Its’ Space In and Outside German Geography

The concept of ‘Mitteleuropa’ developed in Germany around 1800, albeit without its being deployed in a unitary way. The concepts articulation reveals a variety of patterns. First, a Mitteleuropa defined meridionally, which extended from the North Cape to Sicily; second, a Mitteleuropa given shape by lines of latitude reaching from the Atlantic to the Urals or at least the Black Sea; and finally, a Mitteleuropa located in the centre of the continent. The meridional and, above all, the last named, centre–periphery model were developed into major political platforms of German nationalism. Nature ‘itself’, geographers but also non-geographers argued, had predisposed the vast territory stretching from the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube and the Weichsel River, perhaps even as far away as to the swamps of Rokitno, to form a geopolitical unity under German hegemony. In point of fact, neither in the case of Mitteleuropa nor in any other similar ones does nature dictate a particular politics. The upshot of this essay therefore is: ‘Spaces do not simply exist, spaces are produced!’

Taylored Lives: Narrative Productions in the Age of Taylor, Veblen, and Ford

The article reviews the book “Taylored Lives: Narrative Productions in the Age of Taylor, Veblen, and Ford,” by Martha Banta.