Perspectives: A Canadian Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy
Perspectives is a Canadian journal for political economy and social democracy by the Broadbent Institute. Our publication brings boldly left-wing ideas and inquiry into public debates and policy fora for building a Canada that is just and equitable, based on the Broadbent Principles for Canadian Social Democracy.
We present commentary, long-form analysis, interviews, and other content to help inform strategists, organizers, academics, and policymakers of the theory, practice, and tactics that can be used to advance an egalitarian economy, dismantle systems of oppression, and build social movements based on justice and equality.
Perspectives: A Canadian Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy
Democracy, Participation and Capitalist Crisis: An Interview with Nancy Fraser
This conversation with Nancy Fraser explores her work on the crises of capitalism, democracy, and participation. She is interviewed by Nick Vlahos, Deputy Director at the Center for Democracy Innovation, and Adrian Bua, Marie Curie-Sklodowska Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ahead of their forthcoming co-edited special volume of the journal Democratic Theory on "How to Democratize the Economy" that seeks to establish a closer conversation between the fields of democratic theory and critical political economy.
Fraser has argued that much scholarship in political science and democratic theory on these issues is hampered by “politicism”: an inclination to view the political in separation from other social spheres, which fails to appreciate the structural nature of contemporary crises. Fraser argues that the political arena is important because it is here that collective regulatory powers are exercised, however it needs to be situated within a broader understanding of the social totality to understand how it is affected by crisis dynamics in other spheres and how it might contribute to attenuating, or resolving, these.
The conversation begins by exploring these arguments in relation to Fraser's recent work on the critique of capitalism, and then traces how this relates to her work on the public sphere, participatory parity, and utopian thought.
Works Cited
- Brown, Wendy. 2019. In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. Columbia University Press.
- Crouch, Colin. 2017. Can Neoliberalism be Saved from Itself? Social Europe Edition
- Fraser, Nancy. 1995. “Recognition or redistribution? A critical reading of Iris Young’s justice and the politics of difference.” Journal of Political Philosophy 3 (2): 166-180
- Fraser, Nancy. 1997. “A Rejoinder to Iris Young.” New Left Review 1, 223, May-June
- Fraser, Nancy. 1997. Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the Post-Socialist Condition. Abingdon: Routledge
- Fraser, Nancy. 2012. “On Justice: lessons from Plato, Rawls and Ishiguro.” New Left Review 74.
- Fraser, Nancy. 2014. “Behind Marx’s Hidden Abode.” New Left Review 86, March-April.
- Fraser, N. 2022. Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care and The Planet. Verso
- Polanyi, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation. Farrar & Reinhardt.
- Streeck, Wolfgang. 2014. “How Will Capitalism End?” New Left Review, 87, May-June.
- Streeck, Wolfgang. 2016. How will Capitalism End? London: Verso.
- Streeck, Wolfgang. 2017. Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. Verso.
- Young, Iris Marion. 1997. “Unruly Categories: A Critique of Nancy Fraser’s Dual Systems Theory.” New Left Review 1, 223, March-April.