The grammar of politicization and depoliticization: Arendt's republicanism and the translation of revolutionary politics and judgment into political institutions

For Arendt, political freedom is both a spontaneous rejection of rule and the foundation of institutions. In my dissertation, I argue that both aspects are linked together by her concept of political judgment. This reading of Arendt contrasts with a strand of political theory that seems to argue that public-participatory politics, as found in revolutions, cannot be translated into lasting institutions: Wolin and Ranciere argue that any attempt at establishing institutions undermines the participatory character of politics. Habermas and Pettit on the other hand argue for establishing lasting institutions, but they do so at the expense of a rich concept of participation. From an Arendtian perspective, both of these approaches understand politics as rulership.;By focusing Arendt's account of judgment, this dissertation offers a way to criticize both of these strands that claim it is impossible to translate participatory politics into institutions. Focusing on a reading and defense of her theory of political judgment I suggest it is possible to produce a republican political theory that neither embraces pure spontaneity in the rejection of rule nor seeks to institutionalize republican freedoms in a form of rule that diminishes public politics. Drawing on Arendt's critique of Platonic-Heideggerian Philosophy, I argue we should see Arendt as replacing the nexus of philosophy and political rule with her concept of political judgment. Once we place political judgment at the center of her political theory we can derive a thick concept of republican freedom that includes rejection of rule in favor of plurality, and membership. From this perspective, public politics, judgment and the thick concept of republican freedom are co-constitutive with political judgment linking the former to the latter. If we understood politics purely in terms of rule, Arendt shows, we would miss this interrelatedness and ultimately undermine political judgment and political action altogether.;Still, in her emphasis of the political over the social, Arendt ignores that socio-economic capability translates into political domination that would ultimately undermine her attempt to bring political judgment and political freedom in line with political institutions. I then propose to supplement Arendt's theory by a Habermasian concept of rights.