Review article
https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.63.3.04
Political Hope Between Utopia and Political Eschatology
Hrvoje Špehar
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Science
Abstract
This paper offers a typology of the forms of political hope derived from two intersecting criteria: whether hope assigns a positive content to its goal or remains negative, and whether it maintains a reserve that prevents any historical order from being identified with fulfillment. Three configurations are derived from these criteria: utopian-teleological, critical-utopian, and praxeological-emancipatory hope. A privileged place within this framework is held by the theology of hope of Jürgen Moltmann and Johann Baptist Metz, which is here joined by the political thought of Giorgio Agamben. It is shown that these three authors articulate hope through three temporal dimensions – future (Moltmann), past (Metz), and present (Agamben) – and together form a typology that inherits the utopian orientation toward the new, intersects it with eschatological restraint or messianic inoperativity, and thus opens, yet simultaneously limits, the transition toward a praxeological hope of liberation.
Keywords
Political Hope; Utopia; Political Eschatology; Moltmann; Metz; Agamben
Hrčak ID:
352502
URI
Publication date:
27.10.2026.
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