Install the app
Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.
Just tap then “Add to Home Screen”
Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.
Just tap then “Add to Home Screen”
Menu
Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.
Just tap then “Add to Home Screen”
Maxime Lepoutre has been honoured with our 2023 Political Theory Prize for his book Democratic Speech in Divided Times (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Our Political Theory Prize is awarded to an outstanding first book on political theory written in English and is co-sponsored by Contemporary Political Theory. It was conceived in collaboration with our Standing Groups on Kantian Political Thought, Political Theory and International Political Theory, along with the convenors of our General Conference Section on Methodology of Political Theory.
We have created this short video to celebrate Maxime's achievement and to share his work with our community. Congratulations!
Maxime Lepoutre is currently a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Political Theory at the University of Reading, and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. His research lies at the intersection of political philosophy, social epistemology, and philosophy of language, and is devoted to exploring the norms that should govern democratic public discourse in contexts marked by deep divisions.
Within this broad topic, Maxime is especially interested in questions surrounding how we should respond to harmful speech, the positive democratic function of characteristically 'non-ideal' speech, and how we process and organise political information in polarised settings. His work on these topics has recently appeared in Philosophy & Public Affairs, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Criminal Law and Philosophy, and Political Studies.
Before joining Reading, Maxime was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford, and a Residential Fellow at the University of Connecticut. Prior to that, he completed a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, a BPhil in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and a BSc in Politics and Philosophy at the London School of Economics.
Democratic Speech in Divided Times
In an ideal democracy, people from all walks of life would come together to talk meaningfully and respectfully about politics. But we do not live in an ideal democracy. In contemporary democracies, which are marked by deep social divisions, different groups for the most part avoid talking to each other. And when they do talk to each other, their speech often seems to be little more than a vehicle for rage, hatred, and deception.
Democratic Speech in Divided Times argues that we should nevertheless not give up on the ideal of democratic public speech. Drawing on the resources of political theory, epistemology, and philosophy of language, this book develops a sustained account of the norms that should govern public discourse in deeply divided circumstances.
I am deeply honoured and humbled by the ECPR’s decision to award me this prize. And I feel immensely grateful to the friends, colleagues, supervisors, mentors, editor, and students, whose insights and kind support have been an integral part of the process of writing this book.
This work is a fascinating book dealing with the complexity of democratic deliberative discourse in contemporary society.
The jury welcomes the major contribution of the book to political theory, but also prizes the capacity of the author to work at the overlap between epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, psychology, sociology, and political science.
The Jury wishes to award an honourable mention to Theodore Lechterman, IE University, for his book The Tyranny of Generosity: Why Philanthrophy Corrupts Our Societies and How We Can Fix It (Oxford University Press, 2023).
ECPR may receive a commission from the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program for qualifying purchases made through the product links on our website.
Keywords: Political Theory