What Kind of Government?: Rethinking Contemporary Forms of Government after the Break in Tradition

Acknowledgements
Contents
Thinking Contemporary Forms of Government after the Break of Tradition
	1 Introduction: “All of Europe Wants a Political Turnaround!”
	2 Background: The Break in Tradition and the Contemporary Problems with the Forms of Government
	3 The Themes of the Book
	4 Who Rules Whom?
	5 Forms of Government and the Principle of Action
	6 Politics of Crisis and the Rule of Bureaucracy
	7 What Is Needed to Preserve the Achievements of Revolutions, Democracy, and a Plural State?
	8 (Pre)conditions for Politics: Plurality, the Natural and Economic Base, and Courage
	9 Conclusion
	References
Part I: Between Past and Present
	An Unholy Trinity: Populism, Illiberalism, Authoritarianism
		1 Problems of Democratic Authority
		2 Populism and its Pitfalls
			2.1 In a Manichean World
			2.2 The Vice of Vagueness
			2.3 Modalities of “Populism”
			2.4 Populism’s Great Reset and Disenchantment
		3 Illiberalism
			3.1 Democracy Minus Rights and Elections
			3.2 Defective Democracies and Others
			3.3 More than a Problem of Definition
			3.4 Summing up the Critique
		4 Authoritarianism
			4.1 Authoritarianism and Bonapartism as Forms of Bourgeois Rule
			4.2 Dimensions of Authoritarianism
			4.3 A Relational Concept of Authority and Authoritarianism
			4.4 Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism
			4.5 Structural Components of Authoritarianism
		5 Conclusion
		References
	Bonapartism: Obsolescence of the “Forms of Government”
		1 Introduction
		2 Bonapartism: The Emergence of the Concept
		3 Bonapartism in the Eyes of Contemporaries
		4 The Bonapartist Political Economy
		References
	Illiberal Democracy as Revolutionary Action: The Case of the 2020–2022 Janša Government in Slovenia
		1 Introduction: The Trouble with Labelling the Far Right
		2 The Case of the 2020–2022 Janša Government
			2.1 Rule by Unlawful Pandemic Decrees
			2.2 Pressure from the Government and Attacks on the Legislature and Judiciary
			2.3 Attempts to Ban Opposition Parties and Allusions to the Use of Force in Domestic Politics
			2.4 The Political Instrumentalization of the Police
			2.5 The War on Public Service Media
			2.6 A Recapitulation of the Most Important Features of Janša’s Government
		3 Illiberal Democracy: A Perverted Form of Government or a Revolutionary Action?
		4 Conclusion
		References
			Sources
	Neither Ruling nor Being Ruled
		1 Introduction
		2 The Great Tradition
		3 Neither Ruling Nor Being Ruled
		4 The Lost Revolutionary Treasure
		5 The Pirate Republic
		6 Conclusion
		References
	The Politics of Crisis and Contemporary Forms of Government
		1 Introduction
		2 Crisis as an Emergency, a Moment of Decision, and a Judgment
		3 Crisis as a Specifically Modern Phenomenon
		4 Perspectives of Crisis in the Context of Historical Time
		5 Crisis, Critique, and Politics
		6 The Expansion of Crisis
		7 The Anti-crisis
		8 Politics of Anti-crisis as the Mode of Government
		9 Conclusion: No Future, No Future for You?
		References
	Bureaucracy as a Pervasive Phenomenon of Contemporary Governments
		1 An Assorted Approach to Bureaucracy
		2 The Arendtian Notion of Bureaucracy
		3 Hardships Triggered by Bureaucracy in Institutional Functioning
		4 Staggering the Resilience of Bureaucratic Environments
		5 Conclusion
		References
	Understanding Political Change with Montesquieu
		1 Introduction
		2 Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws
		3 Montesquieu’s Theory of Government and the Distinction Between the Nature and Principle of Government
		4 The Nature and Principle of Government
		5 The Decline of Every Form of Government Always Begins with the Decay of Principles
		6 The Crisis of Democracy and Challenges for Critical Political Theory
		References
Part II: New Beginnings
	Revitalizing Democracy: Citizen Assemblies, Citizen Power, and Spaces of Freedom
		References
	Federalism and Deconstruction in Hannah Arendt
		1 Introduction
		2 Federalism as a Form of State and a System of Councils as a Form of Government
		3 Federalism as a Principle of Organization and the Life of the Mind
			3.1 Judging as an Expression of Federalist Thinking
		4 Conclusion
		References
	In the Face of Global Upheavals: Re-sharpening the Dimensions of Plurality in Arendt’s Republican Thinking
		1 Introduction
		2 The Critical Potential of Power and Councils
		3 Four Elements of a Republican Thinking
			3.1 Plurality
			3.2 The Separation of Powers and Federalism
			3.3 Plurality of Judgment
			3.4 Our Relationship with Nature
		References
	Taking Care of the Eternal: Politics between Two Households
		1 Introduction: Arendt, Marx, and Dismantling Tradition
		2 Labor, Work, and Marx
		3 Circular Time and Eternity
		4 The Unnatural Growth of the Natural
		5 Conclusion
		References
	Courage against Domination in Republican Democracy
		1 Introduction
		2 Courage: Concept, Conceptions, Ascription, Empirical Limits
			2.1 Local or Merely Occasional Courage?
		3 Local and Occasional Courage Help Entrench Non-domination
			3.1 Courage vis-à-vis Non-domination
			3.2 Courage Between Virtues and Social Norms
		4 Is Courage Antisocial?
			4.1 Eclipsing Other Qualities, and Futility
		5 Conclusion
		References