Abstract

This article examines the questions of Power and Discourse in this particular period and argues that we can go beyond the recognition of multiplicities in all domains and hence that we can work at producing a shared normative ground for at least some of these multiple critical positions. It does so by focusing on one particular issue, the need to produce a new narrative about the relation of the national state and the global economy. A more precise and critical appraisal of this interaction signals the existence of new political openings both in and outside the formal political system, and of a new politics that could allow citizens to demand accountability from the new global actors. These new political openings and new politics entail the development of a normativity that engages the question of whose claims are legitimate in a context where the supposed neutrality of markets and technology are seen as obviating the need for normative approaches; and represent a critique of older political lineages centered exclusively in the national state that easily excluded many groups which never completely identified with the national state and its representation of the nation. One of the key tasks for intellectuals today is to dig out the inner architecture of power from under the new rational-technical discourses within which it is embedded.