A Politics of Enlarged Mentality: Hannah Arendt, Citizenship Responsibility, and Feminism

Abstract

Drawing from four Arenaaan themes—plurality, the public realm, power, and perspective appreciation—I argue for citizenship as a “politics of enlarged mentality.” This term suggests an alternative conception of citizenship that surpasses the limits of both the liberal and civic republican traditions. Unlike die masculinized liberal ideal of the citizen and contrary to the gendered universality that defines the civic republican traditions, a politics based on enlarged mentality combines context sensitivity with principled judgments.