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@article{190013,
        author = {Swati Pal},
        title = {Politics Without Foundations: Can Normativity Survive the Collapse of First Principles?},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {8},
        pages = {596-603},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=190013},
        abstract = {The erosion of first principles has become one of the defining conditions of contemporary political theory. Grand foundations—whether metaphysical, moral, or procedural—no longer command the authority they once did, challenged by pluralism, historical violence, and sustained philosophical critique. This situation raises a fundamental question: can political normativity survive once its traditional grounds have collapsed? This article argues that normativity does not disappear with the loss of foundations but must be reconceived in non-foundational terms. Rather than deriving political obligations from ultimate principles, normativity emerges from practices of justification, contestation, and responsibility within political life itself. By rejecting both foundational certainty and normative nihilism, the article develops an immanent account of political normativity that treats disagreement as constitutive rather than pathological. Norms remain binding not because they are grounded in unquestionable truths, but because they are continuously defended, revised, and sustained through public reasoning. In this framework, the absence of foundations intensifies rather than diminishes ethical responsibility, compelling political actors to own their judgments without recourse to necessity or inevitability. Politics without foundations thus reveals not the end of normativity, but its transformation into a fragile, dynamic, and democratic practice.},
        keywords = {Political normativity; anti-foundationalism; justification; democratic legitimacy; political responsibility},
        month = {December},
        }