Making the Political - 9780521760607

"The account of political founding in Making the Political is of great significance today: Zhang shizhao's insights speak to the dilemmas of those faced with collapsing or unstable polities, and lessons from his work challenge fundamental themes in political theory. Equally important, jenco's method - careful scholarship based on the Chinese sources combined with a dynamic use of contemporary theory to interrogate and amplify Zhang's arguments - makes the book a model for future, globally informed theorizing." Stephen C. Angle, wesleyan University

"This is an original and important piece of work that addresses a range of debates in political theory today relating to political agency, democratization, and the construction of political community. Leigh Jenco brings distinctive perspective to these questions and fruitfully models the practice of comparative political theory, In both its substance and its methods, the book breaks new ground." Sharon R. Krause, Brown University

Democratic political theory often sees collective action as the basis for non-coercive social change, assuming that its terms and practices are always self-evident and accessible. But what if we find ourselves in situations where collective action is not immediately available, or even widely intelligible? This book examines one of the most intellectually substantive and influential Chinese thinkers of the early twentieth century, Zhang Shizhao (1881-1973), who insisted that it is individuals who must "make the political" before social movements or self-aware political communities have materialized. Zhang draws from British liberalism, democratic theory, and late imperial Confucianism to formulate new roles for effective individual action on personal, social, and institutional registers, in the process, he offers a vision of community thatturns not on spontaneous consent or convergence on a shared goal, but on ongoing acts of exemplariness that inaugurate new, unpredictable contexts for effective personal action.