The text below is written as a prologue for the keynote lecture given by Chantal Mouffe at the 2009 edition of the
Studium Generale at the Ghent University College (Hogeschool Gent) in Belgium. The seventh edition of this Studium Generale is addressing the theme of "Limits of Ethics?" This text offers the students of the programme a brief introduction to the political thinking of Chantal Mouffe, and provides them with references for further reading.
Chantal Mouffe (1943) is well-known as a leading figure in contemporary European political theory and philosophy. She is professor for Political Theory at the
Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at Westminster University in London. She has taught and done research at numerous universities in Europe, the USA and Latin-America (e.g. Harvard, Cornell and Princeton). She is also a member of the
Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. Chantal Mouffe is the author and editor of many books that have dealt extensively with some of the most vital questions of contemporary democratic life.
Chantal Mouffe is probably best known as the co-author of
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), a book written together with Ernesto Laclau. In this book Laclau and Mouffe propose nothing less than a new political Discourse Theory, while defining their own political position as post-Marxist and radically democratic. Published in the British context of the mid-1980s,
Hegemony and Socialist Strategies was one of the first major texts associated with the post-Marxist position. It quickly became a highly influential book and a reference in its field of study. (Slavoj Zizek, for instance, said that it had a considerable impact on his first book:
The Sublime Object of Ideology.)
With the formulation of their theoretical framework, Laclau and Mouffe have introduced a new set of instruments for political analysis, one that revolves around key concepts like discourse, antagonism, dislocation and (a new reading of the Gramsci's notion of) hegemony. Discourse Theory is at once a social ontology that avoids any form of essentialism, a theory of political identity constructed through antagonism, and a democratic theory.
To give you Discourse Theory in a nutshell.
All social phenomena and objects can only acquire meaning within a discourse, but such a discourse can only achieve a partial fixation of meaning, which opens up the space for all social practices to be articulatory; i.e. to continuously generate new meaning and identity.
Conflict and antagonism should not be understood as a confrontation between social agents that already possess a fully constituted identity (as liberal theory typically does), but rather, it is seen to occur when the presence of an 'Other' prevents me from fully attaining 'my identity'. This impossibility to accomplish a fully closed identity is seen as a mutual experience. Identities are mutually formed through political struggles: they are mutually constitutive, yet they threaten one another. Antagonisms and conflicts simultaneously form and destabilise identities. Social formations too are constituted through the construction of antagonistic relations, by which political frontiers between social agents are drawn. Here too a fully 'sutured' society is seen as impossible.
The success of any political project can be measured by its ability to fix meaning (at least partially and temporally) within a given context. This is what Laclau and Mouffe have called hegemony. Hegemony is seen as more than just dominance or force over others, and as more than the mere creation of consent among social actors. Hegemony involves the political articulation of different identities into a common project that then becomes our social horizon. Hegemonic articulation is indeed seen as the process of social construction of truth.
Discourse Theory can be regarded as a model of discursive conflict, as it seeks insight into the antagonistic relationship between discourses. Political conflicts are understood as struggles between conflicting discourses that each strive to impose their own system of meaning. Discourse Theory typically focuses on how discourses and identities are constructed, how they obtain fixity and (possibly) dominance, and how they eventually got dislocated (once that happens).
Discourse Theory is, I believe, one of the most advanced models of language and politics available to us today - and to my knowledge it is the only one that has been developed explicitly from within the field of political theory as such (in contrast to, for instance, Chomsky's linguistic approach to political analysis). Today, almost 25 years after the first publication of
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Discourse Theory has long proven its theoretical and analytical relevance, even beyond the confines of its own discipline (i.e. in sociology, cultural studies, media studies, law studies and numerous other fields).
As for the post-Marxist position, it might be best understood as an anti-essentialist recasting of the Marxist tradition (up to Althusser), resulting in a de-classing of the socialist project. What is rejected is the economic determinism of Marxism, and the concept of class struggle as the most crucial conflict in society. The proletariat is no longer regarded as the privileged agent of history. Instead, Laclau and Mouffe have put forward a multiplicity of subject positions that, according to their discourse theory, needs to be articulated into a new common left-wing project; one that is supposed to be pluralistic and radical democratic in its aspirations. On the first page of
Dimensions of Radical Democracy (1992), Chantal Mouffe wrote that, "[today] the objective of the Left should be the extension and deepening of the democratic revolution initiated two hundred years ago."
Ever since the publication of
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Laclau and Mouffe have each continued along the path that was first set out in this remarkable book. Throughout the 1990s the individual work of both authors has further sharpened their theoretical model and deepened their analyses. In a series of books - from
Dimensions of Radical Democracy (1992), to
The Return of the Political (1993),
The Democratic Paradox (2000) and her most recent book
On the Political (2005) - Chantal Mouffe has continuously worked from within the framework of Discourse Theory, on what she considers to be the most pressing questions of democratic life today. To demonstrate how remarkable her thinking actually is, I should at least also mention her attempts to re-engage with the ideas of Carl Schmitt - an author who was taboo for such a long time - and her engagement with the work of Wittgenstein, pragmatism and deconstruction.
Here, within the frame of an introduction, I can only summarise some of Chantal Mouffe's original and insightful ideas on democracy, as they have been acquired throughout the years.
What is known by many as liberal democracy nowadays is in fact a historical articulation of two different traditions: i.e. the liberal tradition of individual freedom and pluralism on the one hand, and the democratic tradition of popular sovereignty and equality on the other. Between them there has always been, and remains to be (contrary to what we are often told) an irreducible tension. Democracy, by definition, is featured by a permanent conflict over what is considered to be the 'correct' interpretation of its two constitutive principles: freedom and equality. This, Chantal Mouffe says, is what keeps our democracy alive.
Liberal theory sees democracy as a mere aggregate of individual interests. Democracy is directed towards the creation of a so-called 'rational' consensus, which liberals believe can be achieved through deliberative processes. The individualistic rationalism of liberal thought is, according to Chantal Mouffe, an obstacle for a good understanding of the nature of collective identities. Democracy is not just about organising ballots, counting votes and finding a compromise between social actors with a fully constituted and stable identity. What is specific about modern democracy is to be found not so much in its formal procedures, but rather in its acknowledgment of the legitimacy of social conflict, and, even more so, in its rejection of any authoritarian oppression of such conflict.
We are not living in a post-political era. We have not reached Fukuyama's 'end of ideology' stage, whereby liberalism has conquered all. Our human society is and remains to be essentially political. For Mouffe, as for Carl Schmitt, the 'differentia specifica' of the political is the distinction between friend and enemy; a distinction that involves the formation of an 'us-group' as defined in relation to a 'them-group' through a process of antagonistic articulation. We cannot escape these us/them oppositions. If we ignore antagonism - as many of us have done during the last two decades - we are neglecting the integrative role of conflict in modern democratic society, and by doing so we pave the way for undemocratic forces like right-wing extremism or fundamentalism.
But if we accept that we cannot eliminate antagonism or escape the need for identity, how are we then to conceive of a democratic society? The alternative proposed by Chantal Mouffe involves the transformation of antagonism into an agonism. In a democracy the friend/enemy relation is to be replaced by an adversarial model that allows us to get rid of the violent character of antagonism, while fully acknowledging the dynamics of group identification. The art of agonistic democracy is thus not to ignore or circumvent social conflict, but to control it, or if you like: sublimate it. Instead of going beyond left and right, where conflict first seems to disappear but is eventually played out in the moral register of good-versus-evil, Mouffe urges us to finally come to terms with the conflictual nature of politics and the ineradictability of antagonism. If we ever wish to escape the present dominance of neo-liberalism, we'd better listen to what she has to say - and learn from it.
Further reading:
Carpentier, Nico & Bart Cammaert (2006), '
Bringing Hegemony, Agonism and the Political into Journalism and Media Studies: an Interview with Chantal Mouffe.' In:
Journalism Studies, vol. 7(6), pp. 964-975.
Carpentier, Nico & Patrick De Vos (2001), 'De discursieve blik: de discourstheorie van Laclau en Mouffe als denkkader en instrumentarium voor sociaal-wetenschappelijk analyse.' In:
Ethiek & Maatschappij, jrg. 4, nr. 4, pp. 3-30.
De Vos, Patrick (2006), '
Het politieke denken van Chantal Mouffe.' In:
De Witte Raaf, jrg. 20, nr. 120, maart-april, pp. 7-8.
De Vos, Patrick (2006), 'Op het uur van de rattenvangers: de populistisch verleiding en hoe ze te weerstaan.' In:
Oikos - Tijdschrift voor Politiek, Milieu en Cultuur, jrg. 8, nr. 4. herfst, pp. 37-45. Om dit artikel te lezen op de website van Attac-Vlaanderen:
klik hier.
Howarth, David (2000),
Discourse. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Laclau, Ernesto & Chantal Mouffe (1985),
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London. London/New York: Verso.
Laclau, Ernesto (1990),
New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time. London/New York: Verso.
Miessen, Markus (2007), '
Articulated Power Relations: Markus Miessen in Conversation with Chantal Mouffe.' In:
Roundtable: Research Architecture, Goldsmiths Research Architecture.
Mouffe, Chantal (1990). 'Radical Democracy or Liberal Democracy?' In:
Socialist Review, vol. 20(2), pp. 57-66.
Mouffe, Chantal (ed.)(1992),
Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community. London/New York: Verso.
Mouffe, Chantal (1993),
The Return of the Political. London/New York: Verso.
Mouffe, Chantal (1994),
Le politique et ses enjeux. Pour une démocratie plurielle. Paris: La Découverte/MAUSS.
Mouffe, Chantal (ed.)(1996),
Deconstruction and Pragmatism. London/New York: Routledge.
Mouffe, Chantal (1999),
The Challenge of Carl Schmitt. London/New York: Verso.
Mouffe, Chantal (2000),
The Democratic Paradox. London/New York: Verso.
Mouffe, Chantal (2000), ‘
Wittgenstein, Political Theory and Democracy.’ In:
POLYLOG – Forum for Intercultural Philosophy.
Mouffe, Chantal (ed.)(2001),
The Legacy of Wittgenstein: Pragmatism or Deconstruction. Frankfurt am Main/New York: Peter Lang.
Mouffe, Chantal (2005),
On the Political. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Mouffe, Chantal (2007), ‘
Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces.’ In:
Art & Research – A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods, vol. 1, nr. 2, summer.
Torfing, Jacob (1999),
New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Oxford: Blackwell.
Greetings! Whether intentional or not, you have reached one of several online spots inhabited by Patrick De Vos. Information about who I am and what I do is on my home page. Announcements, articles, travelogues, pictures and occasional thoughts are published here on my weblog. I’ve been sharing resources on my del.icio.us page and new contents and reading materials on my Google Reader page. All my pages alternate between English and Dutch. Shared items also contain German and French articles.
AANKONDIGING: Op woensdag 18 november 2009 ging aan de Hogeschool Gent de achtste jaargang van de collegereeks ‘Studium Generale’ officieel van start met een inaugurale lezing van Pieter De Buysser (foto) en de voorstelling van het nieuwe jaarboek van het Studium Generale, editie 2008-2009: Grenzen aan de Ethiek? Dit boek, onder redactie van Stefan Hertmans, bevat bijdragen van onder andere Freddy Mortier, Peter Tom Jones, Chantal Mouffe, Arnon Grunberg, Yves Desmet, Patrick De Vos, Jan Goossens en Bert Hoogewijs. Het boek werd uitgegeven door Academia Press in samenwerking met ISKA.
