Margaret Canovan
Biographic Data
| ID | 185233 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Margaret Canovan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Margaret |
| FAMILY NAME | Canovan |
| SIGNATURE | CANOVAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Keele University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1248 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Human Condition: Second Edition
The past year has seen a resurgence of interest in political thinker Hannah Arendt, the theorist of beginnings, whose work probes logics underlying unexpected transformations-from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from perspective of actions of which…
Human Condition: Second Edition
Populism for political theorists
Political theorists do not in general pay much attention to populism; are there any good reasons why they should do so? This paper will consider a number of positive answers to this question. Most attention has so far been paid to issues of methodology—can we define ‘populism’? Recently there has also been some interest in the relation between populism and democracy, but there are two further topics that may be worth investigating, first the poss…
Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the Ideology of Democracy
Although populist 1 movements are usually sparked off by specific social and economic problems, their common feature is a political appeal to the people, and a claim to legitimacy that rests on the democratic ideology of popular sovereignty and majority rule. Analyses of populism often point to the tension within western democracy between this populist tradition and liberal constitutionalism. Certainly, there are difficulties in reconciling the p…
The People, the Masses, and the Mobilization of Power: "The Paradox of Hannah Arendt's "Populism
I THIS paper is concerned with a puzzling feature of Arendt's thought, what might be called the paradox of her "populism." The paradox is that while she welcomed direct action by the people , she also feared and deplored almost all actual cases of grassroots mobilization. Much of The Origins of Totalitarianism is devoted to analyzing the activities of totalitarian movements and racist or anti-Semitic mobs, and the book makes clear Arendt's distru…
Plurinacionalismo y estatalidad: El caso de Irlanda del Norte
No Disponible
Sleeping Dogs, Prowling Cats and Soaring Doves: Three Paradoxes in the Political Theory of Nationhood
This article examines three paradoxes concerning nationhood and nationalism in which political theorists have become entangled. Until recently most mainstream political theorists ignored nationhood. In constructing their own theories, however, they tacitly relied upon it to supply the polity with boundaries, solidarity and collective power. More recent attempts to defend national self-determination on liberal grounds have proved self-defeating, c…
Patriotism Is Not Enough
Some political theorists argue that patriotism differs from nationalism in being compatible with universalist liberalism. The theories offered range from the more cosmopolitan constitutional patriotism of Habermas to more rooted republican versions. Despite their rhetorical effectiveness in certain political situations, none of these variants stands up well to critical analysis, and none succeeds in delivering the promised reconciliation of unive…
Lasting Institutions: Arendtian Thoughts on Nations and Republics
Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy
Populism, understood as an appeal to ‘the people’ against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values, should not be dismissed as a pathological form of politics of no interest to the political theorist, for its democratic pretensions raise important issues. Adapting Michael Oakeshott's distinction between ‘the politics of faith’ and ‘the politics of scepticism’, the paper offers an analysis of democracy in terms of …
Is there an Arendtian case for the nation‐state
The Human Condition: Second Edition
A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then--diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological …
Crusaders, sceptics and the nation
Hostility to nationalism is one of the few areas of common ground shared by the crusading liberalism of universal human rights (which is in Oakeshott's terms a variety of 'the politics of faith') and the sceptical liberalism that concentrates on limited government. Nevertheless, Crusaders and Sceptics alike are more indebted to nationhood than they like to admit. Neither of these versions of liberalism pays explicit attention to the problem of ge…
Shorter Notices
Journal Article SHORTER NOTICES Get access MARGARET CANOVAN MARGARET CANOVAN University of Keele Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CX, Issue 435, February 1995, Pages 211–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CX.435.211 Published: 01 February 1995
Arendt and the Politics of Plurality
Ursula Ludz ed, Hannah Arendt, Was ist Politik? Fragmente aus dem Nachlass (Munich/Zurich: Piper Verlag, 1993), 235 pp
Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of her Political Thought
Hannah Arendt is one of the most original and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. Margaret Canovan argues that much of the published work on Arendt has been flawed by serious misunderstandings, arising from a failure to see her work in its proper context. This reinterpretation will surely strengthen Arendt's status as one of the most significant political thinkers of the twentieth century.
On Being Economical with the Truth: Some Liberal Reflections
Although a commitment to free discussion of all issues is one of the traditional pillars of liberalism, contemporary liberals may be justified in feeling uneasy when their principle of universal human rights is publicly challenged in the name of ethnic community. For in spite of liberalism's reputation for rationalism, its principles rely upon a substantial element of myth which does not stand up well to public scrutiny. Liberals would be wise to…
Shorter Notices
Journal Article Shorter Notices Get access MARGARET CANOVAN MARGARET CANOVAN University of Keele Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CI, Issue CCCXCIX, April 1986, Pages 512–513, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CI.CCCXCIX.512 Published: 01 April 1986
Short Notices
Journal Article Short Notices Get access MARGARET CANOVAN MARGARET CANOVAN University of Keele Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume XCIX, Issue CCCXCII, July 1984, Pages 661–662, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XCIX.CCCXCII.661 Published: 01 July 1984
Bentham, Thou Shoul'st Be Living at This Hour
People’, Politicians and Populism
IF THE ZOOLOGISTS ARE TO BE BELIEVED, THIS WORLD appears very different to members of different species of animals. Flowers conceal patterns and markings that are visible only to insects; dogs inhabit a world reeking with enticing scents; the bats' Lebenswelt echoes with highly significant squeaks. Something rather similar is true of political animals as well. The political world that faces the true-blue Tory has contours different from those tha…
The Un-Benthamite Utilitarianism of Joseph Priestley
Historians tracing development of ideas are alert to possibility of discovering plagiarism, but they do not always make enough allowance for its opposite. Besides writer who steals another's ideas and parades them as his own, we need to keep a lookout also for that more attractive character, author who proclaims himself disciple of another, but actually holds quite different views from his supposed teacher. A thinker may gratefully remember momen…
Arendt, Rousseau, and Human Plurality in Politics
Hannah Arendt's political thought seems at first sight strikingly similar to Rousseau's. Closer consideration shows, however, that the two offered fundamentally different solutions to the problem of human plurality in politics. Whereas Rousseau tried to unite citizens in a single General Will, Arendt stressed the importance of a common public world within which plural citizens can be contained. If Arendt's approach is accepted, an important impli…
A Case of Distorted Communication: A Note on Habermas and Arendt
No matter how the intersubjectivity of mutual understanding may be deformed, the design of an ideal speech situation is necessarily implied in the structure of potential speech, since all speech, even of intentional deception, is oriented towards the idea of truth. This idea can only be analysed with regard to a consensus achieved in unrestrained and universal discourse. Insofar as we master the means for the construction of an ideal speech situa…
Utopia in the Plural: A Comment on Goodwin1
Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy
Populism, understood as an appeal to ‘the people’ against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values, should not be dismissed as a pathological form of politics of no interest to the political theorist, for its democratic pretensions raise important issues. Adapting Michael Oakeshott's distinction between ‘the politics of faith’ and ‘the politics of scepticism’, the paper offers an analysis of democracy in terms of …
Populism for political theorists
Political theorists do not in general pay much attention to populism; are there any good reasons why they should do so? This paper will consider a number of positive answers to this question. Most attention has so far been paid to issues of methodology—can we define ‘populism’? Recently there has also been some interest in the relation between populism and democracy, but there are two further topics that may be worth investigating, first the poss…
People’, Politicians and Populism
IF THE ZOOLOGISTS ARE TO BE BELIEVED, THIS WORLD appears very different to members of different species of animals. Flowers conceal patterns and markings that are visible only to insects; dogs inhabit a world reeking with enticing scents; the bats' Lebenswelt echoes with highly significant squeaks. Something rather similar is true of political animals as well. The political world that faces the true-blue Tory has contours different from those tha…
Patriotism Is Not Enough
Some political theorists argue that patriotism differs from nationalism in being compatible with universalist liberalism. The theories offered range from the more cosmopolitan constitutional patriotism of Habermas to more rooted republican versions. Despite their rhetorical effectiveness in certain political situations, none of these variants stands up well to critical analysis, and none succeeds in delivering the promised reconciliation of unive…
Two Strategies for the Study of Populism
The reason why ‘populism’ has remained such a confused notion is that two different strategies can be adopted in trying to clarify it, and the more intuitively appealing of the two does not work. Attempts at a theory of populism invariably fail because they are either too wide-ranging to be clear or too restricted to be persuasive. The alternative is a phenomenological approach, leading to the construction of a descriptive typology
The Contradictions of Hannah Arendt's Political Thought
Hannah Arendt's political thought is baffling even to the most sympathetic reader. It is baffling not only because of her fondness for questioning our established certainties, and not only because her political values are strange and shocking to us,' but most importantly because her thought is riven by a deep and serious inconsistency and confused by a persistent uncertainty of stance. The serious inconsistency lies between what may for the sake …
Arendt, Rousseau, and Human Plurality in Politics
Hannah Arendt's political thought seems at first sight strikingly similar to Rousseau's. Closer consideration shows, however, that the two offered fundamentally different solutions to the problem of human plurality in politics. Whereas Rousseau tried to unite citizens in a single General Will, Arendt stressed the importance of a common public world within which plural citizens can be contained. If Arendt's approach is accepted, an important impli…
On Being Economical with the Truth: Some Liberal Reflections
Although a commitment to free discussion of all issues is one of the traditional pillars of liberalism, contemporary liberals may be justified in feeling uneasy when their principle of universal human rights is publicly challenged in the name of ethnic community. For in spite of liberalism's reputation for rationalism, its principles rely upon a substantial element of myth which does not stand up well to public scrutiny. Liberals would be wise to…
A Case of Distorted Communication: A Note on Habermas and Arendt
No matter how the intersubjectivity of mutual understanding may be deformed, the design of an ideal speech situation is necessarily implied in the structure of potential speech, since all speech, even of intentional deception, is oriented towards the idea of truth. This idea can only be analysed with regard to a consensus achieved in unrestrained and universal discourse. Insofar as we master the means for the construction of an ideal speech situa…
The People, the Masses, and the Mobilization of Power: "The Paradox of Hannah Arendt's "Populism
I THIS paper is concerned with a puzzling feature of Arendt's thought, what might be called the paradox of her "populism." The paradox is that while she welcomed direct action by the people , she also feared and deplored almost all actual cases of grassroots mobilization. Much of The Origins of Totalitarianism is devoted to analyzing the activities of totalitarian movements and racist or anti-Semitic mobs, and the book makes clear Arendt's distru…
Sleeping Dogs, Prowling Cats and Soaring Doves: Three Paradoxes in the Political Theory of Nationhood
This article examines three paradoxes concerning nationhood and nationalism in which political theorists have become entangled. Until recently most mainstream political theorists ignored nationhood. In constructing their own theories, however, they tacitly relied upon it to supply the polity with boundaries, solidarity and collective power. More recent attempts to defend national self-determination on liberal grounds have proved self-defeating, c…
Crusaders, sceptics and the nation
Hostility to nationalism is one of the few areas of common ground shared by the crusading liberalism of universal human rights (which is in Oakeshott's terms a variety of 'the politics of faith') and the sceptical liberalism that concentrates on limited government. Nevertheless, Crusaders and Sceptics alike are more indebted to nationhood than they like to admit. Neither of these versions of liberalism pays explicit attention to the problem of ge…
Lasting Institutions: Arendtian Thoughts on Nations and Republics
Is there an Arendtian case for the nation‐state
On Levin's “Animal Laborans and Homo Politicus in Hannah Arendt” (Volume 7, No. 4, November 1979)
The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt
The Contradictions of Hannah Arendt's Political Thought
Hannah Arendt's political thought is baffling even to the most sympathetic reader. It is baffling not only because of her fondness for questioning our established certainties, and not only because her political values are strange and shocking to us,' but most importantly because her thought is riven by a deep and serious inconsistency and confused by a persistent uncertainty of stance. The serious inconsistency lies between what may for the sake …
On Levin's “Animal Laborans and Homo Politicus in Hannah Arendt” (Volume 7, No. 4, November 1979)
Populism
Utopia in the Plural: A Comment on Goodwin1
Commnications
Two Strategies for the Study of Populism
The reason why ‘populism’ has remained such a confused notion is that two different strategies can be adopted in trying to clarify it, and the more intuitively appealing of the two does not work. Attempts at a theory of populism invariably fail because they are either too wide-ranging to be clear or too restricted to be persuasive. The alternative is a phenomenological approach, leading to the construction of a descriptive typology
Arendt, Rousseau, and Human Plurality in Politics
Hannah Arendt's political thought seems at first sight strikingly similar to Rousseau's. Closer consideration shows, however, that the two offered fundamentally different solutions to the problem of human plurality in politics. Whereas Rousseau tried to unite citizens in a single General Will, Arendt stressed the importance of a common public world within which plural citizens can be contained. If Arendt's approach is accepted, an important impli…
A Case of Distorted Communication: A Note on Habermas and Arendt
No matter how the intersubjectivity of mutual understanding may be deformed, the design of an ideal speech situation is necessarily implied in the structure of potential speech, since all speech, even of intentional deception, is oriented towards the idea of truth. This idea can only be analysed with regard to a consensus achieved in unrestrained and universal discourse. Insofar as we master the means for the construction of an ideal speech situa…
Short Notices
Journal Article Short Notices Get access MARGARET CANOVAN MARGARET CANOVAN University of Keele Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume XCIX, Issue CCCXCII, July 1984, Pages 661–662, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XCIX.CCCXCII.661 Published: 01 July 1984
Bentham, Thou Shoul'st Be Living at This Hour
People’, Politicians and Populism
IF THE ZOOLOGISTS ARE TO BE BELIEVED, THIS WORLD appears very different to members of different species of animals. Flowers conceal patterns and markings that are visible only to insects; dogs inhabit a world reeking with enticing scents; the bats' Lebenswelt echoes with highly significant squeaks. Something rather similar is true of political animals as well. The political world that faces the true-blue Tory has contours different from those tha…
The Un-Benthamite Utilitarianism of Joseph Priestley
Historians tracing development of ideas are alert to possibility of discovering plagiarism, but they do not always make enough allowance for its opposite. Besides writer who steals another's ideas and parades them as his own, we need to keep a lookout also for that more attractive character, author who proclaims himself disciple of another, but actually holds quite different views from his supposed teacher. A thinker may gratefully remember momen…
Shorter Notices
Journal Article Shorter Notices Get access MARGARET CANOVAN MARGARET CANOVAN University of Keele Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CI, Issue CCCXCIX, April 1986, Pages 512–513, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CI.CCCXCIX.512 Published: 01 April 1986
On Being Economical with the Truth: Some Liberal Reflections
Although a commitment to free discussion of all issues is one of the traditional pillars of liberalism, contemporary liberals may be justified in feeling uneasy when their principle of universal human rights is publicly challenged in the name of ethnic community. For in spite of liberalism's reputation for rationalism, its principles rely upon a substantial element of myth which does not stand up well to public scrutiny. Liberals would be wise to…
Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of her Political Thought
Hannah Arendt is one of the most original and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. Margaret Canovan argues that much of the published work on Arendt has been flawed by serious misunderstandings, arising from a failure to see her work in its proper context. This reinterpretation will surely strengthen Arendt's status as one of the most significant political thinkers of the twentieth century.
Arendt and the Politics of Plurality
Ursula Ludz ed, Hannah Arendt, Was ist Politik? Fragmente aus dem Nachlass (Munich/Zurich: Piper Verlag, 1993), 235 pp
Shorter Notices
Journal Article SHORTER NOTICES Get access MARGARET CANOVAN MARGARET CANOVAN University of Keele Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CX, Issue 435, February 1995, Pages 211–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CX.435.211 Published: 01 February 1995
The Human Condition: Second Edition
A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then--diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological …
Crusaders, sceptics and the nation
Hostility to nationalism is one of the few areas of common ground shared by the crusading liberalism of universal human rights (which is in Oakeshott's terms a variety of 'the politics of faith') and the sceptical liberalism that concentrates on limited government. Nevertheless, Crusaders and Sceptics alike are more indebted to nationhood than they like to admit. Neither of these versions of liberalism pays explicit attention to the problem of ge…
Lasting Institutions: Arendtian Thoughts on Nations and Republics
Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy
Populism, understood as an appeal to ‘the people’ against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values, should not be dismissed as a pathological form of politics of no interest to the political theorist, for its democratic pretensions raise important issues. Adapting Michael Oakeshott's distinction between ‘the politics of faith’ and ‘the politics of scepticism’, the paper offers an analysis of democracy in terms of …
Is there an Arendtian case for the nation‐state
Patriotism Is Not Enough
Some political theorists argue that patriotism differs from nationalism in being compatible with universalist liberalism. The theories offered range from the more cosmopolitan constitutional patriotism of Habermas to more rooted republican versions. Despite their rhetorical effectiveness in certain political situations, none of these variants stands up well to critical analysis, and none succeeds in delivering the promised reconciliation of unive…
Plurinacionalismo y estatalidad: El caso de Irlanda del Norte
No Disponible
Philosophy (22 works) · Political science (21 works) · Law (17 works) · Philosophy (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Law (12 works) · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy (9 works) · Political economy (8 works)