Rethinking Politics

The consequences of the financial crisis erupting in 2008 offer a variety of possibilities for rethinking politics. First, the liberal-democratic perspective underpinning most contemporary western societies assumes that any problems these societies encounter can be resolved within the liberal-democratic understanding of the political. This assumption will be challenged through investigating the version of liberalism offered by Rawls. Secondly, the question of agent responsibility appears central to understanding the financial crisis. Yet the model of human action prevalent in most political and economic analyses does not allow this question of agent responsibility to be satisfactorily raised.