By emancipatory politics, I mean radical engagements concerned with the liberation from inequality or servitude. If we see once and for all that history does not obey a master-slave dialectic, or that it only does so in some contexts and circumstances, we can recognise that emancipatory politics cannot be the only side of the story. Life politics refers to radical engagements which seek to further the possibilities of a fulfilling and satisfying life for all, and in respect of which there are no "others." This is a version of the old distinction between "freedom from" and "freedom to," but "freedom to" has to be developed in the light of a framework of Utopian realism.

XREF: Distinguishes emancipatory politics from life politics as a complementary pairing, echoing the classical negative/positive liberty distinction from Berlin's two concepts of liberty.

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Moderni…, loc. 368