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Politics As Loot: Reflections On Theories Of Decline In Political Thought, Milo Ward

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis responds to the perennial theories of political decline in Western political thought by reimagining politics as a part of the loot plundered by the victors of history. It unpacks and critiques prognostications of the impending end of politics, specifically those of theorists Wendy Brown and Hannah Arendt, by dredging up the colonial and the capitalist logics that covertly underpin assumptions that politics is something that can be exclusively possessed. The forensic treatment of narratives of political decline reveals the unmistakable tracks of the rationality of property relations behind laments over the fate of political traditions that also withhold …