Workshop Political Hope Vol. 2

Hope, as well as mechanisms of giving or telling hope increasingly emerge as subject of public and political-philosophical debates, especially in times of crisis. Intuitively, hope seems to be a much better action guiding principle than fear, for example. “Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn’t filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear”, says journalist and activist Naomi Klein, but what exactly does hope mean and what role does it play in politics? 

Images of hope – but also of hopelessness – have emerged as central elements, for example, for climate activism, or dealing with new technologies – but also for phenomena of populism. What exactly is meant when social actors hope for something or are hopeless, how is hope told, and how can one distinguish hope that lasts from deceptive hopes? Questions, such as these, arise about the nature, origin, objectives, and justifying motives for political hope.

In a roundtable format as part of our workshop series, we want to address these questions in depth. The aim is to illuminate the fuzzy concept of “political hope” from different perspectives to reflect and determine its potential and limits.