Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas
The journal Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas (ISSN 1576-4184, ISSN-e 1989-6115) is published every four months and is edited by the Complutense University of Madrid’s Research Group "Historia y ontología del presente: la perspectiva hispana". It is intended for an academic audience and it publishes original works in the fields of political philosophy, philosophy of law, constitutional theory, the methodology of political history, the history of political concepts and the history of Spanish and Latin American political thinking.
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This article seeks to reflect on Žižek's thinking today, at the time Coronavirus, and see how such thinking has a lot to tell us in the face of this global crisis. On the one hand, we can no longer wait for a revolution to happen, because it will be another mutation of Capitalism that instead of destroying it will make it stronger, but, on the other hand, in this Coronavirus crisis, it is possible that it is possible that Another way of articulating one another happens, it is “love” for Žižek; a certain Christian atheist religion; namely, a way of understanding Communism today.
Copyright (c) 2020 Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas
The Thought of José Carlos Mariátegui: Between Marxism and Populism?
This paper focuses on the central place that José Carlos Mariátegui granted to the surviving ayllu community structures in the construction of a socialism adapted to the conditions of Peru. This inquiry will allow us to contrast the solutions to the problem of the land and the problem of the Indian, as they were conceived by the Peruvian thinker, with the approaches made by the Russian populists regarding the survival of the rural commune (the obshina). Finally, we will be in a position to question to what extent the paths traveled by politicians of the intellectual stature of Herzen and Chernyshevski, in the Russia of the 19th century, and by Mariátegui, in the Peru of the first decades of the 20th century, depart from the Marxism of the Marx himself.
Copyright (c) 2021 Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas
A. Fernández-Savater, Capitalismo libidinal: antropología neoliberal, políticas del deseo, derechización del malestar, Ned ediciones, 2024, 221 pp.
Copyright (c) 2026 Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas
E. San Miguel Pérez, España ha estado en su sitio. Estado de derecho y nación como plenitud de acción democrática (1907-1936), Madrid, Dykinson, 2024, 149 pp.
Elettra Sttimilli, Filosofía de los medios. Hacia una nueva política de los cuerpos, Valencia: Tirant humanidades, 2025, 232 pp.
O. A. Cabezas, Oscar del Barco en el país de los soviets: entre Heidegger y Lenin, Adrogué, La Cebra, 2024, 154 pp.
Óscar Godoy Arcaya, Sobre la representación política. Historia del gobierno representativo (edición de Andrés Alonso Martos, y prólogo de Arturo Fontaine), Santiago de Chile, Fondo de Cultura Económica y Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, 2025, 284 pp.
Filosofía y drama de la historia. A propósito de José Luis Villacañas, Senderos que se bifurcan. Una breve historia del poder, de los neandertales a Trump, Barcelona, Arpa, 2026
Presentación del dossier. Identidades y dinámicas de inclusión/exclusión en el espacio urbano
«Germans against Berbers»: the construction of a popular subject position in/against the Joseantonian counter-historical discourse
«Germanics versus Berbers», an article by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in which the history of Spain is described as the structural struggle of two opposing races (Germanics and Berbers), contrasts with the classical right-wing reading where the enemy, as Carl Schmitt claims, constitutive of society, is external. This article must therefore be understood in terms of what Foucault calls a counter-history, a historical narrative marked by an irreconcilable tension between two races that constitute the same society. From this perspective, it is possible, with the elements proposed by the discourse but against the discourse itself, to elaborate what Mouffe and Laclau call a popular construction of the subject understood in terms of Berberisation.
The Conception of Democratic Planning in the Communist Party of Spain (1988-2018): A Path Towards Communism?
The article traces the approaches of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) to the so-called "democratic planning" -which constitutes the core of its economic proposals- during approximately thirty years of the party's history, between the 12th and 20th Congresses (February 1988-December 2017). For this purpose, its political documentation, as well as other relevant documentation, is used. The aim is to elucidate to what extent the party remains faithful to its original Marxist ideology, as well as the type of society it projects when it refers to a socialist or communist future. By analysing its proposals on key issues such as property, labour, the market and the environment, it becomes clear that he advocates a "mixed economy" model in line with the postulates of social democracy.
De-forming the World. On Grammar and the Body in Denise Ferreira da Silva
For Denise Ferreira da Silva, modern grammar implies the production of a system of definitions, stratifications, and normalizations on the condition of obliterating its modes of consolidation. Thus, grammar implies the shaping of the living, thus the decomposition of the ordering demands an exposition around grammar, the body, and the world. This paper proposes that Ferreira da Silva brings into play an anagrammatic that threatens onto-epistemological grammar. Such an anagrammatic displacement demands both the interruption of logical-ontological operators and the deconfiguration of the “ordered world” and its consequent colonial, racial, and national juridical-economic framework. In Ferreira's writing, interruption, tempo, hiatuses, hyphens, and parentheses do not operate simply as a secondary resource but as ellipsis of the logical-copulative function, as supplementary series that decline and depose the disciplinary closure by dismantling the economy of value equivalence. In this context, the paper explores the case of Puerto Rico—particularly through Rocío Zambrana’s analysis—as the locus where colonial debt inscribes itself in racialized and feminized bodies, focusing on how the refusal to pay an unpayable debt unfolds a critique of value, gendered subjectivation, and the racialized organization of the world.
China and the democracy debate in the 19th and early 20th centuries
The term democracy and its debate in China entered the agendas of both Chinese politicians and intellectuals in the mid-19th century. Thinkers such as Kang Youwei, Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, and Sun Yat-sen, among others, began to wonder how to adapt democracy to China's historical, economic, social, and political circumstances. Once this question was raised, they explored whether democracy, as understood in the West, was viable in China. Alternatively, they considered whether it should be adapted to China's specific characteristics. Lastly, as a third and final scenario, they pondered whether; after exploring all definitions, obstacles, benefits, and drawbacks, democracy should be rejected within the framework of Chinese thought.
Brief Critical Reflections and Dialogues on Luigi Ferrajoli’s Work: “The Constitution of the Earth”
In today's globalized world, increasingly complex, like a "troubled river" caused, especially by the vagaries of the market, which, in their course, end up generating war, environmental and social degradation, the need for a solid and fair international legal order becomes more evident. The work of Luigi Ferrajoli, particularly his proposal for a “Constitution of the Earth”, offers a profound and original vision on how to build this order. In this work, a critical dialogical exploration is made of Ferrajoli's central ideas and their relevance in the current context. The 21st century has witnessed an intensification of global challenges, from climate change to social inequalities and armed conflicts. Given this panorama, the question of an international legal order (which already has antecedents in jusphilosophical and juspolitical currents: Vitoria, Kant, Kelsen, Habermas, Rawls, etc.) that guarantees peace, justice and human rights, becomes more urgent than ever. Luigi Ferrajoli, in his work The Constitution of the Earth, offers an ambitious and provocative answer to this question. Through a detailed analysis of his proposal, this research seeks to contribute to the debate on the construction of a more just and democratic world order.
In the search of the foundation. Reflections on the aporetic nature of the political and its normative implications
This article examines the role of foundation and normativity within the conceptions of the social and political dimensions in the epistemological and political frameworks of Rosanvallon, Laclau, and Mouffe. For this purpose, it revisits Schmitt's distinction between "the political" and "politics," a distinction the French author employs to assert the aporetic nature of political concepts, elucidate their semantic transformations, and propose a non-prescriptive analysis of society and democracy. Subsequently, the article explores how agonistic thought addresses these issues and conceptualizes the relationship between theory and normativity. Finally, it contrasts these two developments to demonstrate that recognizing the ontological incompleteness of the political is essential for understanding society, politics, and their transformations. However, it argues that such a position cannot forego normative or prescriptive dimensions.
Gnosticism, Individuality, and Freedom. The Imaginary Religion of Harold Bloom
The dominant element of the prophetic religious traditions of the West is historical-institutional and dogmatic. In these traditions, for Harold Bloom, God embodies absolute transcendence and something radically external to the individual. An alternative way has existed and survives in a pluriform form in these same traditions, under the guise of their mystical manifestations, “the way of gnosis”. This gnosis, which has survived for two thousand years, can be defined as the acceptance and knowledge of the God within the human being. Our objective in this paper is to critically approach this Bloomian conception of gnosis and its application, as a hermeneutic model, to his interpretation of “American religion”, the “American religious faith”, a ‒supposed‒ syncretic, millenarian and delay faith, where the divine medium merges into the everyday life of the individual, into the very liberating interiority of the self.
The banished myths: Sopralluoghi in Palestina and Appunti per un’Orestiade africana
In 1963 and 1970, Pier Paolo Pasolini made two documentaries, Sopralluoghi in Palestina and Appunti per un'Orestiade africana, the object of which was to search for scenarios for the making of two films. One of them will be realized: Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964); the other, which should have been an "African Oresteada", will not be realized. In any case, this search reveals the need (and the difficulty) to find a new land that can host the ancient myth –"banished" by civilization from its original scenarios (the Judaea of Christ)– or that must seek new lands where it becomes credible (as in the case of the transposition of Orestiada to an African developing country). With the help of cinematographic texts and treatments, we reflect on this exile from an eco-mitocritical perspective, guided by the visionary thought of the great Italian poet, writer and director.
Consciousness and class struggle in Marxism
The concept of class struggle is, in Marxist philosophy, the principle on which an entire conception of history is built upon (history understood as past, present, and future). Different schools of thought have attempted to disparage the existence of an antagonism, which is determined by the relations of production and is, as well, inherent to the development of any social system. The aim of this work is to expose—based on three fundamental ideas for Marxism (work and alienation, reification and class consciousness, and the historical mission of the proletariat)—the political significance that the transition of the proletariat from class-in-itself to class-for-itself, in capitalism, represents. A second objective, derived from the aforementioned, is to explain the formation of class consciousness as a prelude to an effective transformation of the current economic system of production.
The Kantian Res Publica as the Locus of Reflective Judgment. Preliminary Notes Toward a Reading of the Transcendental Dialectic as a Manual of Political Disillusionment
This essay offers a philosophical-political rereading of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as a "manual of political disillusionment," engaging critically with Hegelian objections to Kantian modernity. Against the common interpretation that equates Kantian community with mere juridical formalism, the essay argues that Kant not only acknowledges the communal "void" he inaugurates, but that this void is politically rehabilitated as the locus of reflective judgment—a supplement for a res publica devoid of substantial teleology yet tasked with the infinite labor of sustaining the very space of deliberation about how to predicate itself. The text concludes that the supposed political insufficiency attributed to Kant by Hegel may in fact be a radically modern gesture: the dissolution of all communal mystification, leaving in its wake the reflective care of a shared and constitutive emptiness.
Scientiarum libertas perfundet omnia luce: The Philosophy of Krause and the Krausist Project of the Scientific Society at the Origins of Academic Freedom in Spain
This article presents Krause's idea of establishing an ‘Alliance of Science’, which was developed by his disciple Ahrens and adopted by the Spanish Krausists to combat the interference of the State and the Church in public education. Beginning 1868, they also intended for the University of Madrid to become the seed for the creation of a ‘Scientific Society’. In addition, this article explains the origin and meaning of the motto of the current Complutense University of Madrid, ‘libertas perfundet omnia luce’, devised by the Krausist professors.
Rethinking Foucault from China: Sexuality, Literature and Modernity
Foucauldian philosophy, introduced in China from the 1990s onwards under the vague label of French Theory, has had a relative impact on literary studies. Its rare application to Chinese literature —especially pre-modern fiction— stems from the Orientalist aura that still surrounds Michel Foucault’s thought, particularly his distinction between the civilisations of scientia sexualis and ars erotica —among which China is included—, set out in the first volume of his History of Sexuality (1976). Drawing on the lecture Sexuality (1964) and testimonies from the late Foucault, I will attempt to deconstruct this vision of sexuality and present Chinese culture as yet another civilisation with a regime of scientia sexualis. To conclude, I will briefly apply my re-reading to two Chinese literary texts: Jin Ping Mei (c. 1610) and Ruined City (1993).
Copyright (c) 2025 Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas
Foucault’s interest in Cervantes appears in a new light after the posthumous publication of several early works in recent years: La grande étrangère (2013), Folie, langage, littérature (2019) and Le Discours philosophique (2024). Foucault’s most notable early works, such as Madness and Civilization (1961) and, especially, The Order of Things (1966), already clustered his interest in Cervantes around two main foci: Don Quixote’s literary madness on the one hand and the fundamental role of Cervantes in the constitution of literature as a discourse of language turned towards itself, on the other hand. However, Foucault’s recently published works from the second half of the 1960s offer new insights on these questions, nuancing, completing and going beyond what had been already said in his major works of 1961 and 1966.
The Autobiographer as Parrhesiastes. Applications of Foucauldian Thought to Autobiographical Literature in the Hispanic Context
This paper proposes an approach to Michel Foucault´s thought on the Self Writing in the Greco-Latin context. The aim is to apply some of the most representative concepts of Foucault´s recent work to recent autobiographical literature. The ideas he develops in his approach to classical genres such as the hypomnemata or the moral epistles, as well as his study of parrhesia, can contribute to the interpretation of contemporary literary texts. At the same time, tracing Foucault´s influence on them will help to understand the relevance and validity of Foucauldian thought in the present. The works of five authors will be analysed: The Uruguayan Mario Levrero, the Argentinian María Moreno and the Spaniards Carlos Pardo, Andrés Trapiello and Iñaki Uriarte. The aim of this selection is to offer a comparative sample of the autobiographical literature in different traditions of the Hispanic world.
Politics of Eros, Nihilism and the Time of Care. A diagnosis of the present
This article aims to make a diagnosis of the present, in the wake of the Foucauldian project of the "critical understanding of the present", paying particular attention to what Wendy Brown has recently called our "nihilistic times". The narrative of our history is no longer a narrative structured by a teleological time of progress; rather, it maintains a specific relationship with pessimism. The paper proposes an analysis of the concept of "eros" that allows us to reactivate critical readings of a present dominated by thanatological narratives, and to promote narratives in which the subject as a subject of desire is related to the ethics of care, that is to say, that makes the subject an ontological participant in the common. To this end, the relations of the concept of eros with nihilism, with care-risk, with the political imagination of literature, with the time of care and with resistance or the will not to be governed are analyzed.
The Sade Case: An Unceasing Primordial Murmur
The aim of the text is to document the presence of Sade in the work published by Foucault and to trace his path and the specificity of his relevance, both literary and philosophical, throughout it. His archaeological location between the classical episteme and modernity will be the one that propitiates, in the literary space, his pioneering role in the passage from the work of language to literature; and in the philosophical space, his commitment to a non-dialectical thought, which counterposes to the game of contradiction and totality, the questioning of the being and the limit as a thought of transgression.
A Philosophical Discourse as Far and as Close as Possible to the Language of Fiction. Philosophy, Literature and Fiction after the great Nietzschean mutation in Michel Foucault’s "Le Discours philosophique"
In this contribution we propose to analyze the way in which Michel Foucault approaches the question of fiction and literature in Le Discours philosophique, an essay written in 1966, just after the publication of Les Mots et les choses, and published recently, in May 2023. More recent discussions of this essay have already highlighted certain difficulties regarding the role and function of literature, or rather of “literary discourse” or fiction, as presented in this archaeological history of philosophy that Foucault did not publish during his lifetime.
Fiction and/or Philosophy? From "Les Mots et les choses" to "Le Discours philosophique"
Based on a few chapters of the recently published manuscript of Le Discours philosophique, this contribution sets out to assess the place and role of the “discourse” of literature or fictional discourse in its relation to “philosophical discourse” as Foucault envisaged it in 1966. In particular, it appears that the relationship between fiction and philosophy evolves significantly between Les mots et les choses and this manuscript. To identify the gaps and strategic shifts between these two texts, written just a few months apart, we propose to examine the status they both accord to literature in the order of knowledge or in the space of discourse, by showing the different fate they reserve for Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
Freedom under Coercion, Unconditional Creation: The Political Lesson of Literature
In what way can we consider literary texts as the basis for a certain number of analyses that constitute the core of the "political" Foucault? Did Foucault seek in literature, or in a certain practice of literary writing, a certain number of elements to confront questions that arose for him in spheres other than literature itself? This paper goes on to hypothesize that we find in Foucault's work on literature a source for understanding how a certain work on the materiality of language prefigured other work, which would come later, on the materiality of power relations and modes of subjectification. In the same way that we would find a "literary birth" of biopolitics. This paper intends to develop in particular another hypothesis that completes the previous ones, namely: that which Foucault's thought develops around the double question of freedom and history owes much, in reality, to a proposition that Oulipo makes. Namely, both would think together, in an inseparable way, coercion and the power of invention.
Left populism is dead, long live left hegemony. Lessons from European politics
This paper examines the rise and decline of left populism in Europe, situating it within the broader context of the “populist moment” of the 2010s. While initially seen as a promising strategy to reinvigorate the radical left in response to economic crises and the delegitimisation of traditional centre-left parties, left populism has largely failed to achieve lasting political realignment. The analysis focuses on the conditions of possibility for populism, distinguishing between situational factors – such as crises, social demands, and institutional and social arrangements – and agent-related factors, including light and leader-centric organisation and cultural elitism. These constraints, along with the evolving political landscape, have significantly narrowed the space for left populist projects in Europe. The paper argues that while left populism may have influenced political discourse in certain contexts, its overall impact has been limited, raising critical questions about its viability as a long-term political strategy. In this sense, it suggests that hegemony, rather than populism, should serve the North Star of left political strategy.
Anti-Austerity Parties Ten Years Later: A Framework for Analysis
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, new (or, at that time, fringe) parties made inroads into Southern Europe, a region particularly affected by the sovereign debt crisis and austerity measures. The shared ambition of such challenger parties was to represent excluded sections of the population, or even the “99%”, or the “people”, and was in most cases accompanied by a discourse of democratic regeneration, also through innovative organizational practices. Ten years later, what remains of those parties in the five main countries of the area (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, as well as France, where there was also the irruption of a left-wing populist party)? What were their systemic impacts? Is it possible to systematically explain the reasons for extremely divergent outcomes? The paper, after a controlled comparison, proposes a framework for analyzing the varying trajectories of the main political movements of our interest: the Portuguese radical left, Podemos, La France Insoumise, the 5 Star Movement and Syriza. The paper argues that at least three factors are central to understanding their different evolution. First: electoral success and participation in government. Evidence shows that, without exception, the latter has been detrimental to the parties” electoral fortunes. Second: their ideology and organization. These can be considered as factors that can facilitate or hinder the adaptation of the party to different political contexts, and, more remarkably, the return of the centrality of the left-right axis. Thirdly, the strategic reactions of mainstream political actors, particularly the traditional centre-left parties. It is possible to outline three scenarios: a scenario of substantial continuity (Portugal) or “return to the past” (i.e. to the “pre-populist” phase: Spain); a “mainstreaming” scenario, with a centripetal drift and loss of capacity to preside over the contestation space (Greece); a scenario of consolidation as a “populist leftist” actor, in opposition (France) or alternative (Italy) to the mainstream centre or centre-left parties.