Unity and Difference: a model of Political Community based on the work of Hannah Arendt and Charles Taylor
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2016-08-23
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en
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There is a tension between creating unity in a political community, while at the same time allowing differences within that community to flourish. This thesis aims to find a sustainable model of political community that can provide room for both individual and group-related differences. It does so by bringing together the work of Charles Taylor and Hannah Arendt. These two authors both take difference, or plurality, as a starting point in creating a model of political community which does not depend on shared ethnicity, culture or a shared conception of the good. I will argue for a model of political community which combines the strengths in the work of Arendt and Taylor. This model, which I call a ‘common good approach to political community’, involves that unity is achieved because citizens share a public-political sphere, in which they deliberate on issues of shared concern. In this process, they identify certain common goods which they value and for which they share responsibility. Citizens construct a political identity based on these common goods, but this identity is dynamic and open to change.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen