ABSTRACT
Uncertainty and instability characterize these times. Nonetheless, success and progress endure as a condition to strive for, even though there is little faith in either. All individuals and societies know failure better than they might care to admit, failed romance, failed careers, failed politics, failed humanity, failed failures. This introduction overviews the key concepts discussed in this book. The aim of this book is to engage with its lived enactments and the challenges and prospects presented through them. According to the author, the state comes into being through the everyday processes of relational contestation, 'relational politics'. One of the core concerns in this book is to highlight this everyday relationally contested nature of the state because, if this is not recognized, then run the risk of seeing a contemporary neoliberal drift as definitive of the liberal democratic state project nature. Social difference cannot be reconciled, only repressed.
