A Renewed Agenda for Studying Anti-Politics, Depoliticization, and Governance: Conclusion

This chapter returns to the idea of ‘nexus politics’ and the collection’s overall concern with how depoliticization functions to reinforce anti-politics in the context of changes in governance. We organize an agenda for further research around theoretical, methodological, and empirical themes. Theoretically, we argue that further work is needed to better account for how and why depoliticization and politicization occur, and on which forms of politicization promote choice, deliberation, and agency. Methodologically, we need to develop analytical models that map out what institutional and discursive configurations make choice and collective agency appear more or less visible. We need to keep pushing the envelope by examining how depoliticization operates in unconventional arenas. While much more work still needs to be done, this book makes a modest yet distinctive contribution towards a better understanding of ‘nexus politics’ and the growth of anti-politics as one of the most significant issues of our time.