Antagonism, hegemony and ideology after heterogeneity

Journal of Political Ideologies

Volumn 10, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 289-309

  Thomassen, Lasse ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK   (Ireland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HEGEMONY; IDEOLOGY; THEORETICAL STUDY;

EID: 25444489023     PISSN: 13569317     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13569310500244313     Document Type: Review

References (125)

1. E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd edition (London: Verso, 2002), p. 105.
2. E. Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), p. 92;
3. and E. Laclau, 'The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology', Journal of Political Ideologies, 1 (1996), pp. 201-220.
4. For Laclau's work, see Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1;
5. Laclau, New Reflections, op. cit., Ref. 2;
6. E. Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996);
7. and J. Butler, E. Laclau and S. Žižek, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London: Verso, 2000).
8. On the intellectual influences of Laclau and the 'Essex School', see J. Townshend, 'Laclau and Mouffe's hegemonic project: The story so far', Political Studies, 52 (2004), pp. 269-288;
9. A. Norval, 'Theorising hegemony: between deconstruction and psychoanalysis', in L. Tønder and L. Thomassen (eds), Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2005);
10. and Y. Stavrakakis, Lacan and the Political (London: Routledge, 1999).
11. For discourse analytical studies using Laclau's theory of hegemony, see the contributions in E. Laclau (ed.), The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994);
12. D. Howarth, A. J. Norval and Y. Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000);
13. D. Howarth and J. Torfing (eds), Discourse Theory in European Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004);
14. and F. Panizza (ed.), Populism and the Mirror of Democracy (London: Verso, 2005).
15. For instance, A. Norval, Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse (London: Verso, 1996);
16. and D. Howarth, 'Complexities of identity/difference: Black consciousness ideology in South Africa', Journal of Political Ideologies, 2 (1987), pp. 51-78.
17. For this view, see E. Laclau, 'Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony', in C. Mouffe, Deconstruction and Pragmatism (London: Verso, 1996), pp. 47-60;
18. E. Laclau, 'Discourse', in R. E. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p. 435;
19. Laclau, Emancipation(s), op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 78f, 90;
20. Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. xi;
21. J. Torfing, New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Žižek (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 102f;
22. N.Åkerstrøm Andersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies: Understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2003), pp. 56-62;
23. N.Åkerstrøm Andersen, 'Political Administration', in Howarth and Torfing, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 142-145;
24. and L. Phillips and M. Winther Jørgensen, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 48f.
25. For a good use of a combination of deconstruction and Laclauian discourse theory, see Vicki Squire, '"Integration with diversity in modern Britain": New Labour on nationality, immigration and asylum', Journal of Political Ideologies, 10 (2005), pp. 51-74.
26. A. Norval, 'Hegemony after deconstruction: the consequences of undecidability', Journal of Political Ideologies, 9 (2004), pp. 139-157.
27. E. Laclau, 'Paul de Man and the politics of rhetoric', Pretexts 7:2 (1998), pp. 154 and 156;
28. E. Laclau, 'Democracy between autonomy and heteronomy', in O. Enwezor et al. (eds), Democracy Unrealized: Documenta11_Platform1 (Ostfieldern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2002), p. 381;
29. C. Pessoa et al., 'Theory, democracy, and the Left: an interview with Ernesto Laclau', Umbr, (2001), pp. 9f;
30. and E. Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005), Chapter 5.
31. 'Heterogeneity' is used in a similar fashion in J. Derrida, Positions, 2nd edition (London: Continuum, 2002).
32. Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 111f.
33. In New Reflections (Laclau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 17f, 172f),
34. Laclau introduced the deconstructive notion of 'constitutive outside' from H. Staten, Wittgenstein and Derrida (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), pp. 16-18, 24.
35. On Staten's and Laclau's uses of this notion, see L. Thomassen, 'In/ exclusions: towards a radical democratic approach to exclusion', in Tønder and Thomassen, op. cit., Ref. 3.
36. Laclau, 'Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony', op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 47-60;
37. Laclau, Emancipation(s), op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 78f, 90;
38. and Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. xi.
39. Yet, Laclau also rightly acknowledges that Derrida himself theorises the decision, cf. Laclau, 'Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony', op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 48.
40. A. J. Norval, 'Hegemony after deconstruction: the consequences of undecidability', Journal of Political Ideologies, 9 (2004), pp. 139-157.
41. Torfing, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 102f, 300;
42. Åkerstrøm Andersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 56-62;
43. and Phillips and Jørgensen, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 48f.
44. When distinguishing deconstruction from hegemony analysis, they all make reference to Laclau's distinctions between deconstruction and hegemony and between undecidability and the decision. For a similar view of the complementarity of deconstruction and hegemony in relation to politics, see S. Critchley, 'On Derrida's Specters of Marx', Philosophy & Social Criticism, 21:3 (1995), p. 21.
45. Torfing, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 103.
46. Ibid. Here I am assuming that the distinction between hegemony and deconstruction is conceptual and not just methodological or heuristic.
47. R. Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1986).
48. E. Laclau, 'Constructing Universality', in Butler, Laclau and Žižek, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 303. In Laclau's original model, the equivalence is represented by =, but it is clear from the text that it should be ≡, that is equivalence and not identity.
49. For a good example of the use of Laclau's theory for the analysis of populist ideology and a discussion of this point, see Y. Stavrakakis, 'Antinomies of formalism: Laclau's theory of populism and the lessons from religious populism in Greece', Journal of Political Ideologies, 9 (2004), pp. 253-267.
50. E. Laclau, 'On the names of God', in S. Golding (ed.), The Eight Technologies of Otherness (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 262.
51. Laclau, op. cit., Ref. 15, p. 305.
52. See also E. Laclau, 'Glimpsing the future', in S. Critchley and O. Marchart (eds), Laclau: A Critical Reader (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 281;
53. and Laclau, 'The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology', op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 219. In the model, this is represented by the division (split) of the elements in the chain.
54. E. Laclau, 'Identity and Hegemony: The Role of Universality in the Constitution of Political Logics', in Butler, Laclau and Žižek, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 70.
55. Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 129.
56. Laclau refers to the empty signifier as a name as opposed to a concept or description, cf. E. Laclau, 'The uses of equality', in Critchley and Marchart, op. cit., Ref. 18, pp. 342-344.
57. J. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. A. Bass (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982), pp. 307-330.
58. Laclau, Emancipation(s), op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 41-43;
59. and E. Laclau, 'Structure, History and the Political', in Butler, Laclau and Žižek, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 208.
60. G. Bowman, '"A Country of Words": Conceiving the Palestinian Nation from the Position of Exile', in Laclau, The Making of Political Identities, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 142.
61. For good examples of similar analyses, see A. J. Norval, 'Social Ambiguity and the Crisis of Apartheid', in Laclau, The Making of Political Identities, op. cit., Ref. 3, Chapter 5;
62. D. Howarth, 'The difficult emergence of a democratic imaginary: Black Consciousness and non-racial democracy in South Africa', in Howarth, Norval and Stavrakakis, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 175-177;
63. and N. B. Çelik, 'The constitution and dissolution of the Kemalist imaginary', in Howarth, Norval and Stavrakakis, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 200f.
64. See, for instance, Bowman, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 139.
65. For an analogous problem in an analysis of post-war Italian anti-Fascism, see J. Martin, 'Ideology and antagonism in modern Italy: poststructuralist reflections', Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 8:2 (2005), p. 154.
66. See, for instance, Bowman, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 164.
67. Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 125.
68. Laclau and Mouffe, Ibid, p. 126.
69. My account of Laclau's theory of hegemony enjoys the comfort of hindsight as the notion of antagonism is already present in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), whereas the notion of the empty signifier is introduced in Emancipation(s) (1996). This is not to suggest that one can understand Laclau's work as the teleological unfolding of his present position. As is evident, Laclau's texts are themselves heterogeneous. On this, see L. Thomassen, 'Reading radical democracy: a reply to Clive Barnett', Political Geography, 24 (2005), pp. 631-639.
70. Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 122 (also p. 146).
71. S. Žižek, 'Beyond Discourse-Analysis', in Laclau, New Reflections, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 251-254.
72. Laclau, New Reflections, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 39-41, 44f, 65;
73. Laclau, 'The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology', op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 203ff;
74. Laclau in L. Worsham and G. A. Olson, 'Hegemony and the Future of Democracy: Ernesto Laclau's Political Philosophy', in L. Worsham and G. Olson (eds), Race, Rhetoric and the Postcolonial (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), p. 137;
75. and Pessoa et al., op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 15.
76. At times, Laclau and his commentators continue to treat antagonism as the limit of objectivity, for instance, Laclau, op. cit., Ref. 19, pp. 72 and 77.
77. Dislocation may also be said to be a discursive construction because it depends on the discursive construction of what is dislocated and of what dislocates, cf. Laclau, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 319;
78. and T. B. Dyrberg, The Circular Structure of Power: Politics, Identity, Community (London: Verso, 1997), pp. 146-148.
79. N. Widder, 'What's lacking in the lack: a comment on the virtual', Angelaki, 5 (3) (2000), p. 133 (note 23).
80. For the argument that we need to distinguish dislocation and antagonism and understand the latter as merely one way among others to construct identities, see also A. J. Norval, 'Frontiers in question', Filozofski vestnik, 18:2 (1997), pp. 51-75;
81. and U. Stäheli, 'Competing figures of the limit: dispersion, transgression, antagonism, and indifference', in Critchley and Marchart, op. cit., Ref. 18, pp. 234-239.
82. Laclau, op. cit., Ref. 18, pp. 318f.
83. Bowman, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 156.
84. Bowman, Ibid, pp. 143, 155.
85. In 'Social Ambiguity and the Crisis of Apartheid' (Norval, op. cit., Ref. 25, pp. 121f, 127, 131f), Aletta Norval does to the South African apartheid regime what Bowman does to the imagined Palestinian nation. Norval shows how, despite a seemingly clear antagonistic frontier dividing South African society into two camps, there are, in fact, criss-crossing frontiers. These competing frontiers not only undermine the stability and clarity of any particular frontier. When suppressed, they return as discursive heterogeneity or, in Norval's terms, 'ambiguity' and 'indeterminate elements'.
86. Similarly, in the context of post-war Italy, James Martin (op. cit., Ref. 26, pp. 154, 156-158) shows how the antagonism between fascism and anti-Fascism cannot suppress all potential divisions within the anti-Fascist camp because the meanings of 'fascism' and 'anti-Fascism' cannot be completely fixed.
87. See Martin, op. cit., Ref. 26, for a similar position.
88. S. Barros and G. Castagnola, 'The political frontiers of the social: Argentine politics after Peronist populism (1955-1973)', in Howarth, Norval, and Stavrakakis, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 35.
89. Barros and Castagnola, Ibid.
90. For Laclau and Mouffe's formulation of the same, see Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 136.
91. Laclau, 'Paul de Man and the politics of rhetoric', op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 156 (also p. 154);
92. E. Laclau, 'Politics, polemics and academics: an interview by Paul Bowman', Parallax, 5:2 (1999), p. 103;
93. and E. Laclau, 'Can immanence explain social struggles?', Diacritics, 31:4 (2001), p. 5.
94. For an ambiguous characterisation of heterogeneity, see Laclau, 'Democracy between autonomy and heteronomy', op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 382.
95. Pessoa et al., op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 9f;
96. Laclau, 'Democracy between autonomy and heteronomy', op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 381f;
97. and Laclau, On Populist Reason, op. cit., Ref. 7, Chapter 5.
98. P. Stallybrass, 'Marx and heterogeneity: thinking the Lumpenproletariat', Representations, 31 (1991), pp. 69-95.
99. Laclau, 'Democracy between Autonomy and Heteronomy', op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 381.
100. G. Bataille, 'The Psychological Structure of Fascism', trans. F. Botting and S. Wilson, in F. Botting and S. Wilson (eds), The Bataille Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 122.
101. It is 'tendential homogeneity', though. For Laclau's use of Bataille, see Laclau, On Populist Reason, op. cit., Ref. 7, Chapter 5.
102. Bataille, op. cit., Ref. 46, p. 123.
103. Bataille, Ibid, p. 126 (also pp. 125 and 146 [note 3]).
104. Bataille, Ibid, p. 126.
105. Bataille, Ibid, p. 127. In addition to these things, Bataille refers to the unconscious, the sacred, and affect (pp. 126-128).
106. Bataille, Ibid., pp. 126f.
107. Derrida, op. cit., Ref. 22, pp. 12, 25f.
108. On the difficulties of a post-structuralist approach to explanation, see the forthcoming work of Jason Glynos and David Howarth.
109. Bataille, Ibid., pp. 125, 140, 142.
110. Stallybrass, op. cit., Ref. 44, pp. 79ff.
111. Heterogeneity can also express the irreducible gap between what is represented (the absent fullness of the community, an absent universality) and the means of representation (a particular signifier). It refers simultaneously to a lack (the particular signifier is never quite up to the task) and an excess (the empty signifier is only tendentially empty because it contains too much difference).
112. Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 105, 110.
113. Laclau and Mouffe, Ibid, p. 111.
114. Laclau and Mouffe, Ibid, p. 111 and 146 (note 20).
115. M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 60-91;
116. and Norval, op. cit., Ref. 34.
117. W. E. Connolly, 'Review essay: twilight of the idols', Philosophy and Social Criticism, 21:3 (1995), pp. 130-136;
118. Widder, op. cit., Ref. 34.
119. See Stavrakakis, op. cit., Ref. 16.
120. Norval, op. cit., Ref. 34.
121. Laclau, New Reflections, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 92.
122. See also Laclau, 'The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology', op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 203-207.
123. Cf. also Martin, op. cit., Ref. 26, pp. 152 and 154.
124. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 60, p. 76.
125. This is why I have suggested that a radical democratic approach to inclusion and exclusion needs to go beyond the notion of antagonism, cf. Thomassen, op. cit., Ref. 8.