Freedom Beyond Sovereignty

Book excerpt: This volume explores the nature of human agency, including both its vitality and its vulnerabilities. The book identifies emancipatory sources of agency under conditions of domination and oppression, and it suggests a new, pluralist way to understand political freedom. Non-sovereign freedom should be conceived in a plural way because it takes diverse forms, happens in many different places, and aims at a variety of ends. The book reconstructs liberal individualism in fundamental ways. It offers new categories for conceiving human action, personal responsibility, and the meaning of liberty.