Democracy and education in constitution of the liberal subject

Abstract

The article discusses transformations in the forms of constitution of the subject of political practice. It analyzes different problematizations placed by welfarism in the field of economics knowledge and by behaviorism in the field of political knowledge, concerning the new type of subject required by the operation of the program of reconstruction of postwar Europe. From a foucaultian approach it proposes to understand the transformations of political knowledge through different ways in which individuals become subjects of a political practice. To do so, the article takes up the proposals presented by John Dewey aimed renewing liberalism and inventing a “new liberalism”. Similar to what Keynes sought in economics, the purpose of Dewey in politics was to transform it into a set of manipulated variables. That is what made possible the design and development of the David Easton’s concept of “political system”. From this, the education begins to be perceived as a variable strongly related to democracy.