Category=JPA
Category=JPHV
Category=QDTS
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Product details
- ISBN 9780198977780
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 15 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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This book offers a systematic political philosophy of hope for an age of democratic crisis. Authoritarian movements channel collective anxiety into nostalgic fantasies; centrist politics oscillates between emergency management and apocalyptic warnings; and a looming climate catastrophe, democratic backsliding, and deepening inequality make it increasingly difficult to imagine a better tomorrow. Huber argues that the resulting hopelessness is not merely psychological but strikes at the heart of democratic politics itself.
Democracy requires that citizens understand themselves as co-authors of their shared future, yet this self-understanding depends on hope. The book identifies a twofold challenge: first, hope is in crisis, with citizens lacking positive visions of the future worth fighting for; second, hope faces theoretical suspicion from scholars and activists who warn that it breeds complacency, misdirects effort, or distorts our grasp of reality.
Drawing on the analytic philosophy of hope and Frankfurt School critical theory, Democratic Hope develops an account of 'imaginative hope' as politically indispensable: without the capacity to imaginatively inhabit desired futures, citizens cannot overcome demoralisation, constitute effective collectives, or achieve clarity about their political goals.
Jakob Huber is PI of the Democratic Hope Research Group at the Institute of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin. He obtained his PhD in 2017 from the London School of Economics and subsequently held postdoc positions at Goethe University Frankfurt. His work is in moral, social, and political philosophy and often takes inspiration from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
