14 Facts About Andrew Arato

Andrew Arato is a critical theorist and a professor of Political and Social Theory in the Department of Sociology at The New School.

Andrew Arato is best known for his influential book Civil Society and Political Theory, coauthored with Jean L Cohen.

Andrew Arato is known for his work on critical theory and constitutions and was from 1994 to 2014 co-editor of the journal Constellations with Nancy Fraser and Nadia Urbinati.

Andrew Arato served on Telos's editorial board from 1971 to 1984.

One after another, Andrew Arato examined neo-Marxist analyses of state socialism written by such authors as Herbert Marcuse, Cornelius Castoriadis, Rudolf Bahro, Habermas, and Ivan Szelenyi.

Andrew Arato critically assessed the adequacy of their efforts to analyze the social dynamics, stratification, crisis potentiality and legitimating ideology of state socialist societies.

Andrew Arato argued that this type of society could not be understood by focusing on market or economic relations, instead it rested on a type of prerogative political control operating through the bureaucratic state.

Andrew Arato's essays were collected in the 1993 volume From Neo-Marxism to Democratic Theory: Essays on the Critical Theory of Soviet-Type Societies.

Andrew Arato noted that abstract models of social system dynamics often failed to incorporate considerations of national histories and cultural traditions, along with inherited social institutions.

In civil society's fully developed modern form, Andrew Arato wrote, such a realm is protected by legal rights, possesses channels to influence the separate institutions of economy and state, and has a developed organizational life and media organizations to enhance social communication and strengthen social relations.

Andrew Arato closely followed the political debate surrounding the drafting of constitutions in Hungary, where he maintained continued with such critical intellectuals as Janos Kis, co-founder and first chair of the Alliance of Free Democrats, Hungary's liberal party until 1991.

Andrew Arato believed that this particular form of constitution making had pronounced advantages politically and normatively over the traditional model.

Ideally, Andrew Arato argued, the process should be characterized by broad social inclusion, equality, transparency and publicity.

Such a mythology, Andrew Arato said, often had authoritarian consequences, resulting in a leader or party claiming to represent the people without needing any special limits or rights to ensure that the populace could actually have a voice in political decision making.