Excerpt

In its increasingly polarized conflict with the right, the left has appealed to the authority of reason in two ways. It has proclaimed itself “the party of science,” supporting the value of expertise and autonomous authorities in determining public policy. It has also embraced the “critique of domination,” aimed at uncovering the disciplinary logic behind the seemingly rational criteria (e.g., sanity and guilt) that justify the power of certain men over others (e.g., that of the psychiatrist over the insane, that of the judge over the criminal). Both these strategies risk deepening the feeling of democratic dispossession that characterizes contemporary politics in the age of populism. Engaging critically with these two political options, Jean-Claude Monod attempts to renew the left’s appreciation of the concepts of sovereignty and the state.