HannahArendt.net (E-Journal)
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Nils Baratella, Johanna Hueck, Kirstin Zeyer (Hg.), Existenz und Freiheit. Karl Jaspers, Hannah Arendt und Heinrich Barth zur Freiheitslehre Augustins, Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2022, 246 S., 52 CHF (Astrid Hähnlein)
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Can foreigners offer civil resistance to the authorities of the host country? A critical reevaluation of “civil resistance” in the fields of civil resistance studies and Hannah Arendt studies
No full textThe paper discusses the emergence of noncitizen protest movements in European Union countries over the past three decades, focusing on movements like the Sans-Papiers in Paris and We Are Here in Amsterdam. These movements engage in nonviolent actions to challenge the host country's laws while petitioning for citizenship. The paper explores the complexities of categorizing these actions as civil protest or civil disobedience, highlighting the performative effects of nonviolent actions and the categorizations with which they are labeled. The paper delves into the tension between the human rights of all individuals and the legal protection of civil rights only within state territories. Exploring the "right to have rights" concept, it argues that efficacy in civil protest is closely tied to the willingness of state authorities to listen to protestors' demands. The paper suggests that the efficacy of noncitizen protests should be analyzed within the context of antagonism theory, distinguishing between the political and politics. The paper ultimately contributes to the discourse on the efficacy of civil protest in challenging legal systems and pursuing political change.In the years prior to movements such as #RhodesMustFall, Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion, protest movements organized by asylum seekers emerged, such as the Berlin Refugee Movement, Sans Papiers and We Are Here. The limelight has shifted away from them, but they continue to subsist. This type of movement stands for a form of resistance whose full implications are yet to be assessed. Refugee Movement – or any similar movement – has yet to be studied in the field of civil resistance studies. In this paper it is argued that the epistemic disregard for such movements is due to a restrictive understanding of the adjective civil in “civil resistance.” Leading civil resistance scholar Erica Chenoweth equates “civil” with “civic,” which is derivative from the noun citizenship. This restrictive equation implies that civil resistance as a term only pertains to citizen movements. Yet, it is argued in this paper, some movements led by noncitizens may be taken to partake in civil resistance too. Refugee Movement, for instance, organizes protests that manifest typical characteristics of civil resistance. Since they should matter for civil resistance studies, it is argued that “civil” relates to a third term that is distinct from the citizen and the foreigner. It refers rather, it is argued, to the technical term of the civilian: the resident with or without the citizenship status who is subject to the civil law of the host country.
The above-described semantic revision of civil resistance has relevance for not only civil resistance studies but also Hannah Arendt studies. This revision implies a renewed consideration of the assumptions of the efficacy of civil resistance. Gene Sharp, founder of civil resistance studies, brings forth an early theory of the efficacy of civil resistance in the seventies of the last century. He acknowledges that his theory is indebted to Arendt’s notion of power in On Revolution. Arendt’s text should be revisited, it is argued, to revise Sharp’s account of civil resistance. It will be argued that if the field of civil resistance studies relies on Arendt’s notion of power, it should be possible to study the forms of protest of Refugee Movement through the lens of civil resistance. Moreover, Sharp’s evaluation of On Revolution occasions a reevaluation of this contested text in the literature. Three objections against Arendt’s notion of the political will be discussed: first, the objection that for Arendt authority is based on unreflective forces such as habit and belief; second, the objection that Arendt has a purified notion of the political; third, the objection that she offers too restrictive descriptions of the “techniques of struggle” (Sharp) that exemplify her notion of power. Whereas the first two objections may be refuted, the last objection is a substantial one that invites to a revision of her notion of the political within civil resistance studies. This, it is argued, broadens the scope of civil resistance studies to include the study of movements such as Refugee Movement
Ludger Hagedorn / Rafael Zawisza, Faith in the World. Post-Secular Readings of Hannah Arendt, Chicago University Press/Campus Verlag 2021, 251 p., 34,95 EUR. (An Dufraing)
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Hannah Arendt and the May 1968 Events in France
Full text linkIn the essay On Violence Hannah Arendt offered a theory of political revolutions grounded in her unique understanding of power.“Power,” Arendt argued, “corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert.” And, “Where power has disintegrated, revolutions are possible but not necessary.” At such moments, Arendt suggested, the decisive factor is the presence or absence of effective and responsible leadership. “Disintegration often becomes manifest only in direct confrontation; and even then, when power is already in the street, some group of men prepared for such an eventuality is needed to pick it up and assume responsibility.” In the same essay Arendt called the French May Days of 1968 “a textbook case of a revolutionary situation that did not develop into a revolution because there was nobody, least of all the students, prepared to seize power and the responsibility that goes with it. Nobody except, of course, de Gaulle.” This paper seeks to better understand the basis of Arendt’s assessment of the French “revolutionary situation” in 1968, and offers an Arendtian analysis of the origins, events, and outcomes of the French May Days. The central themes of this analysis are: (a) how “public happiness” was experienced, and how “power” itself was constituted on the ground by student, citizen, and labor activists, including via spontaneously organized councils;(b) what signs there were of the French body politic “disintegrating” for lack of what Arendt calls “power”; and (c) what French President Charles de Gaulle did to “pick up power,” which the May Days protestors did not.In the essay On Violence Hannah Arendtofferedatheory of political revolutions grounded in her unique understanding of power.“Power,” Arendt argued, “corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert.” And, “Where power has disintegrated, revolutions are possible but not necessary.” At such moments, Arendt suggested, the decisive factor is the presence or absence of effective and responsible leadership. “Disintegration often becomes manifest only in direct confrontation; and even then, when power is already in the street, some group of men prepared for such an eventuality is needed to pick it up and assume responsibility.” In the same essay Arendt called the French May Days of 1968 “a textbook case of a revolutionary situation that did not develop into a revolution because there was nobody, least of all the students, prepared to seize power and the responsibility that goes with it. Nobody except, of course, de Gaulle.” This paper seeks to better understand the basis of Arendt’s assessment of the French “revolutionary situation” in 1968, and offers an Arendtian analysis of the origins, events, and outcomes of the French May Days. The central themes of this analysis are: (a) how “public happiness” was experienced, and how “power” itself was constituted on the ground by student, citizen, and labor activists, including via spontaneously organized councils;(b) what signs there were of the French body politic “disintegrating” for lack of what Arendt calls “power”; and (c) what French President Charlesde Gaulle did to “pick up power,” which the May Days protestors did not
Conjugating the Present. Words inherited from Hannah Arendt and the public debate. Hannah Arendt: Thinking in company. November 30 – December 1, 2023, CCCB Barcelona. (Montserrat Espinosa)
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Zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft/Between Past and Future. Workshop zum 25. Jubiläum von HannahArendt.net. 4.05.2024, Freie Universität Berlin. (Evelyn Höfer)
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Tobias Albrecht: Handeln und Kritik. Politik und Gesellschaftstheorie nach Arendt und Adorno, Frankfurt a.M. 2022. Campus Verlag 310 Seiten
Full text linkSeit Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts ist vermehrt konstatiert worden, dass die kritische Gesellschaftstheorie eines Politikbegriffs bedarf und eine kritische Theorie des Politischen sich mit ihren sozialen Voraussetzungen beschäftigen muss, um zur Kritik gegenwärtiger Gesellschaftsverhältnisse beitragen zu können (z.B. in der Debatte zwischen Wolfgang Streeck und Jürgen Habermas im Hinblick auf die Finanzkrise 2007/8; vgl. auch Bohmann/Sörensen 2019). Ohne diese grundlegenden gesellschaftlichen Voraussetzungen des Politischen zu berücksichtigen, wird auch die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Gleichheit und Differenz nicht angemessen analysiert werden können, von der Seyla Benhabib voraussagte, dass sie eine Bewährungsprobe für eine kritische Gesellschaftstheorie darstellt (Benhabib 1997). Kritische Gesellschaftstheorien und kritische Theorien des Politischen stehen also vor enormen Herausforderungen, die durch die Postkolonialen Theorien noch verstärkt werden. Innerhalb dieses Kontextes werden die Schriften von Hannah Arendt und Theodor W. Adorno zu Stichwortgebern der Gegenwartsdiagnose und dies mit durchaus unterschiedlichen Ergebnissen, wie die jüngst veröffentlichen Studien zu Hannah Arendt von Juliane Rebentisch und Marie-Luise Knott zeigen (Rebentisch 2022; Knott 2022). Zudem gibt es schon eine längere Diskussion über die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede der Schriften von Arendt und Adorno (vgl. Auer/Rensmann/Schulze Wessel 2003; Weissberg 2011)
Das Kosmopolitische als „erscheinende Welt“ – über Pluralität und Weltbürgerlichkeit als Parameter der Weltoffenheit bei Hannah Arendt
Full text linkDas Kosmopolitische ist konstitutiv auf einen Weltbegriff bezogen, den es diesbezüglich zu bedenken gilt.
Während Hannah Arendts Weltverständnis ausgehend von der Vita activa vorwiegend – aus guten Gründen – als eines im Verhältnis zwischen Personen und damit als politisches in einem weiten anthropologischen Sinn verstanden wird, bedenkt sie ‚Welt‘ jedoch im Spätwerk auf Basis des philosophischen Begriffs der ‚Erscheinung‘ und gibt ihm innerhalb ihrer ‚Phänomenologie des Erscheinens‘ eine eigene Prägung, die mit Gedanken zum Kosmopolitischen verbunden sind. Damit reflektiert sie ihrerseits auf Kant. Mit Rekurs auf das philosophische Erscheinen und Kants Weltbürgerlichkeit, greift das Weltverständnis nun weit über das Interpersonale hinaus und zeigt zugleich menschliche Verantwortung für alle möglichen Weltzusammenhänge auf. Beide Ansätze, der Arendts wie Kants, werden im Rückgriff auf das Erscheinen für umweltphilosophische Überlegungen wie für gegenwärtige klimatheoretische Anknüpfungen in Stellung gebracht, ohne daß die mit der Weltvorstellung verknüpfte Welthaftigkeit und Weltoffenheit allein darin aufgingen.The cosmopolitan is constitutivley related to a concept of the world that needs to be considered.
While Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the world, based on the Vita activa, is understood primarily for good reasons as one in the relationship between persons and thus as political in a broad anthropological sense, however, she reflects the world in her late work on the basis of the philosophical concept of appearance and gives it its own imprint within her ‘phenomenology of appearance’, which connects it with thoughts on cosmopolitanism with which she in turn draws on Kant. With recourse to philosophical appearance and Kant’s cosmopolitanism, the understanding of the world now reaches far beyond the interpersonal and at the same time shows human responsibility for all possible world contexts. Both approaches, both of Arendt’s and Kant’s, are positioned in recourse to appearance for environmental philosophical approaches as well as for current climate-theoretical connections, without the cosmopolitanism associated with the conception of worldliness and openness to the world being absorbed in this alone
Kurzer Kommentar zur Enttarnung der Identität von Dr. Chlan alias Dr. Langer aus dem Eichmann-Umfeld und dem Forschungserfolg von Susanne Benöhr-Laqueur und ihrem Studierenden-Team
Full text linkDie folgende kurze Kommentierung beleuchtet den außerordentlichen Forschungscoup von internationaler Bedeutung, der Susanne Benöhr-Laqueur mit ihrem Team, zu dem insbesondere die Studierenden Johanna Holtschlag, Lina Schröder und Jana auf der Heide gehören, geglückt ist, aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven und reflektiert ihn gleichfalls in unterschiedlichen Kontexten