Dorothea Gädeke - EDP Network

Dorothea Gädeke

EDP Network Member

Dorothea Gädeke is a social and political philosopher with a focus on the intersection of power, structural injustice and democracy. Her approach is motivated by the commitment to bridge analytical, continental and non-Western traditions. She specializes in theories of domination and Critical Republicanism, reconnecting neo-republicanism with the Kantian tradition of republican thought and Frankfurt style Critical Theory. She is particularly interested in bringing this approach to bear on relations between the global north and the global south. Her engagement with African philosophy reflects her interest in structural injustices by confronting relations of domination within academia itself.

The topic of democracy promotion is at the core of her book Politik der Beherrschung. Eine kritische Theorie externer Demokratieförderung (2017, Suhrkamp, English translation in preparation). Here, she develops core elements of a critical republicanism to show that democracy promotion and the postcolonial charge of imperialism levelled against it share the same normative concern. Both, she argues, pursue the goal of non-domination; yet both have, ultimately, reverted into a politics of domination.

Currently Dorothea is developing a new larger research project that brings together her interests in Critical Republicanism and African Philosophy. In a second project she follows up on her interest in democracy promotion, which investigates the Ethics of Electoral Technologies with a particular focus on the Global South. This project is part of the NWO Gravitation Consortium Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies.

Dorothea is Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Utrecht University and Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg. Before joining Utrecht, she has worked and taught at Goethe Universität Frankfurt. She has been a visiting scholar at University of Johannesburg and Princeton University.

More about Dorothea Gädeke here.

Contact: dorothea.gaedeke [at] external-democracy-promotion.eu