The dominant model of democratic politics emphasizes reason at the expense of the passions. Passions have been treated as dangerous, the opposite of reason and the enemy of virtue. Paul Ginsborg and Sergio Labate challenge this model and put forward a very different view, developing an account of modern democratic politics in which both passions and reason play a crucial role.

To do justice to the role of passions in politics, we must pay close attention to the way in which they circulate among us; then we must develop a suitable language to describe them – an ‘alphabet of the passions’ that enables us to understand how they combine with one another and connect with certain states of mind in order to shape political outcomes. Adopting this approach enables the authors to shed new light on one of the major phenomena of our time – the triumph of neoliberalism on a world scale. Neoliberalism has worked so well because it has incorporated its own romantic and individualist version of the passions into its worldview, seducing both individuals and families with the allure of consumption.  

By developing a new model of democratic politics based on the interplay of passions and reason, Ginsborg and Labate provide a much needed framework for understanding the crucial role that passions play in the unfolding of political life.  At a time when populist leaders are on the ascendancy and political processes are shaped as much by anger, resentment and fear as they are by reason and argument, this refocusing of political analysis on the role of the passions could not be more timely.

Paul Ginsborg is Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Florence.

Sergio Labate is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Macerata.

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

Boys, Girls and a Dog in Front of Vinca Cemetery 1

The Seductive Power of Neoliberal Passions 4

1. The Debate on Passions 12

The Ancient History of Passions 12

Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza 15

Passions’ Active Function: Feminism 26

Governing and Combining Passions 31

2. Political Romanticism and Neoliberal Romanticism 39

Political Romanticism 39

Consumer Capitalism and Neoliberal Romanticism 44

Mobilising Passions 52

3. Politics and Passions, Today 61

Constitutional Wisdom 61

Machiavellian Monkeys 65

The Dignity of the Politician 75

The double crisis of passions: Representation and participation 82

Conclusions 91

4. Familial Passions and the Passion for the State 95

Familial love 95

Passions for the Family and the Failure of Republican Pedagogy in Italy 107

In reverse 112

Conclusion 117

Postscript 121

Notes 126

Index 143