Conceptual history, contingency and the ideological politics of time

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades or so there has been a fruitful collaboration between conceptual historians and theorists of political ideologies concerning ways of better understanding the contingency of linguistic meaning. Often neglected in this conversation, however, is the more specific relationship between language and the contingency of temporal experience, on the level of historicity, about which Reinhart Koselleck, conceptual history’s most well-known theorist, wrote a great deal. By revisiting his theorizing on historical time, this article argues that political theorists can profit from his wider scholarship to establish the political contestation of time as a core feature of ideological politics, thereby pushing against characterizations of ideology as atemporal blueprints anathema to the contingency of political activity. Following a discussion on the relevance of Koselleck’s empirical and theoretical observations, this article draws attention to three common areas of temporal contestation – the framing of time, the temporality of movement and the meaning of historical moments – upon which political actors frequently attempt to influence and instigate action.