How can citizens in nominally democratic countries use the state to address the persistence of group-based social oppression? Pro-democracy scholars and activists often argue that the state is just a tool of society’s most powerful interests, who will stifle any attempted reform. Yet some of the twentieth century’s most significant political thinkers offer a more fruitful perspective. Foregrounding previously neglected connections between Indian and American sources, Hari Ramesh draws on insights from John Dewey, B. R. Ambedkar, W. E. B. Du Bois, and a key brief from Brown v. Board of Education to argue that oppressed groups can in fact wield the tools of the state to claim agency and dismantle the sources of their oppression. Ramesh, together with Neil Roberts, will discuss how state action fosters a radical vision of democracy, with citizens coming together as equals to formulate and pursue their political aims.

Hari Ramesh is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. He specializes in political theory, democratic theory, histories and theories of social oppression, and South Asian political

thought. 

Neil Roberts is the John B. McCoy and John T. McCoy professor of Africana studies, political theory, and the philosophy of religion at Williams College. His present writings examine revolutionary strivings and how we live free.