Utopias, Radical Imaginaries, and Political Action

Abstract Increasingly, dystopian visions of the future seem to be dominating political discourses, having a particular purchase in a world defined by the catastrophic effects of global climate change, the devastation of wars and the militarization of global life, and the extensive and intensive neoliberal practices of “primitive accumulation” and exploitation. Given the current context, what is the role of utopias and utopian thinking in bringing about radical changes within our global context which can further democracy, difference, and justice? In what way, if at all, does the utopian disposition (which is the deep discursive positioning that places utopian figuration within the context of political action) provide an important angle through which to understand the tasks of critical political science? Utopias and the utopian disposition are fundamentally necessary to political action, and central to the nature of radicalism. Once we reconstruct the imperatives of the utopian disposition more clearly through the work of Miguel Abensour and others, we can see how important and central this is to the tasks of critical political science. If critical political science is attuned to its primary conceptual and practical imperatives, it will be unabashedly utopian in a way that promotes alterity, openness, and radical transformation.