Guerra, Stato, globalizzazione. René Girard “politico”

René Girard shaped one of the most original and relevant theoretical perspectives of the second half of the 20th century. This essay introduces the monographic section of the journal devoted to the political dimensions of Girard’s thought: the mimetic structuring of desire and its victimization, his reflections on democracy, globalization and the relationship between our societies and sacral and Christian horizons. The Girardian perspective has returned powerfully to the philosophical-political debate after the September 11,2001 attacks and the events of religiously motivated international terrorism, and with the eruption of new forms of populism, ideological extremism and bellicism. His view of violence and his peculiar consideration of victims offer useful insights into the permanence of violence in “globalization” and, more generally, in modernity itself. Girard’s is a philosophical and political reflection that has long questioned the different interpretations and declinations of the relationship between desire, power, and politics, in light of a novel interpretive paradigm.