De-concentrating Megacities. Political Theory and Material Normativity

• Author: Clémence Nasr
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128896
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128896

Political Theory

2023, Vol. 51(1) 190 –204

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917221128896

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Article

De-concentrating

Megacities. Political

Theory and Material

Normativity

Clémence Nasr1

Abstract

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory.

The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a

retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were

asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century

and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be

making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they

vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How will the consistent

concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people

decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the

political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms

might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published

in response to these queries.

The following text is a fictional speech, set in the

near future, in 2060: it is preceded by a preface

The world has warmed by 4°C after the 2°C limit was crossed in the late

2030s. Particularly in the Pacific region, the occurrence of “extreme envi-

ronmental events,” such as cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons, has increased

(Gharbaoui 2018, 303); human life in northern and southern Africa and in

1Sciences Po, Paris, France

Corresponding Author:

Clémence Nasr, 3 rue Montgolfier, Pantin, 93500, France.

Email: clemence.nasr@sciences-po.org

1128896PTXXXX10.1177/00905917221128896Political TheoryNasr

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