2023/10/16 by Fernando Esposito, Fernando Espósito, Tobias Becker · 1 voice · 27 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Australian History and Society #Centrality #Computer science #Epistemology #Futures contract #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis #Historiography #Law #Object (grammar) #Philosophy #Philosophy, History, and Historiography #Political science #Politics #Social science #Sociology #Temporalities #Temporality #Theme (computing)
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/hith.12324
published in History and Theory 62(4), 3-23 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2023/10/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
ABSTRACT Time is so deeply interwoven with all aspects of politics that its centrality to the political is frequently overlooked. For one, politics has its own times and rhythms. Secondly, time can be an object and an instrument of politics. Thirdly, temporal attributes are used not only to differentiate basic political principles but also to legitimize or delegitimize politics. Finally, politics aims at realizing futures in the present or preventing them from materializing. Consequently, the relationship between politics and time encompasses a broad spectrum of phenomena and processes that cry out for historicization. In our introduction to this History and Theory theme issue on chronopolitics, we argue that the concept of chronopolitics makes it possible to do this and, in the process, to move the operation of rethinking historical temporalities from the periphery toward the center of historiographical attention as well as to engage in a dialogue with scholars from a wide range of disciplines. To this end, we propose a broad concept of chronopolitics by discussing existing definitions, by distinguishing between three central dimensions of chronopolitics (the time of politics, the politics of time, and politicized time), and by systematizing possible approaches to studying chronopolitics.