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William E. Connolly (1938–)

Connolly turned pluralism from a noun into a verb. Most pluralisms describe what is already there — the existing configuration of recognised groups, values, identities. Connolly’s central move is to separate pluralism from pluralisation: the ongoing process by which new constituencies, new forms of life, and new differences press for recognition against the existing settlement. The ethos he commends is one that holds the existing arrangement open to its own further differentiation. That structural distinction — plurality as process, not state — resonates closely with SPLectrum’s interrelational account.

William E. Connolly (b. 1938). Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Editor of Political Theory (1980–86). His early The Terms of Political Discourse (1974, Lippincott Award 1999) developed and applied W.B. Gallie’s “essentially contested concepts” to political-discourse analysis. The pluralism work begins in the 1990s with Identity\Difference (1991) and develops through a sustained sequence: The Ethos of Pluralization (1995), Why I Am Not a Secularist (1999), Neuropolitics (2002), Pluralism (2005), A World of Becoming (2011), The Fragility of Things (2013), Facing the Planetary (2017).

Key concepts

Deep pluralism. Distinguished from shallow or secular pluralism, which assumes a neutral procedural space and consigns commitments — religious, ethical, ontological — to a private domain. Deep pluralism takes pluralism into those commitments: multiple faiths, ontologies, and existential orientations operating in public space. Pluralism “extends far beyond faith, encompassing multiple dimensions of social and personal lives.” The depth is not a moral appeal — it is a structural observation about where plurality actually lives.

Pluralisation. Pluralism names a settlement — the configuration of recognised differences at a given moment. Pluralisation names the ongoing process by which new constituencies and identities press for recognition against the existing settlement. Traditional pluralism, Connolly argues, gives “too much priority to past political settlements” and thereby deflates “the politics of pluralization.” The ethos he commends keeps the existing settlement open to further pluralisation — not as instability but as the condition under which a pluralist arrangement stays honest.

Agonistic respect. Drawn from Nietzsche, transformed. Respect across deep difference without requiring agreement or shared ground. Distinct from toleration, which can be condescending, and from consensus, which presumes convergence. A holding-against-each-other relation — each party maintains its commitments while granting the other legitimacy it cannot fully understand. The disposition is not neutrality but active engagement without the expectation of resolution.

Critical responsiveness. The disposition that lets new constituencies emerge — receptiveness to forms of life one does not yet recognise, sometimes does not yet have words for. Connolly’s term for what has to be in place before pluralisation can happen. Without it, the existing settlement hardens into the only legible arrangement.

Politics of becoming. Against ontologies of fixed being, in sustained dialogue with Whitehead, Deleuze, Bergson, James. A World of Becoming (2011) grounds pluralism in a process ontology in which entities are themselves processes of differentiation. The politics of becoming is the refusal to treat the current arrangement as the final one — not as revolutionary disruption but as the recognition that plurality is itself in motion.

Resonance machines. From the later work: assemblages where economic, religious, media and affective registers reinforce each other. The “evangelical-capitalist resonance machine” is his best-known example — a configuration where distinct subsystems amplify each other into an anti-pluralist formation. The concept provides a structural account of how deep plurality can collapse: not through a single cause but through mutual amplification across registers. A failure-mode analysis — what happens when the holding-against-each-other relation breaks down.

Where Connolly stops

Connolly names the process — pluralisation — and the dispositions that sustain it — agonistic respect, critical responsiveness. He also names the failure mode — resonance machines that collapse plurality into mutual amplification. He has failure-mode mechanism — resonance machines — and dispositional accounts of what sustains plurality. What he does not develop is a generative mechanism for pluralisation itself: the structural account of how interaction across differences produces new differences. Where that mechanism would sit, Connolly draws on process philosophy (Whitehead, Deleuze) rather than developing it independently. The SPLectrum seed derives the mechanism from the relational character of language itself: where languages overlap, the overlap is a site of differentiation, and what emerges is new language. Connolly has the process, the dispositions, and the failure modes. The seed has the mechanism.

Key works

See also: Whitehead · Pluralism · Interrelational Pluralism — structural trajectory