Dialogue, Carnival, Democracy: Mikhail Bakhtin and Political Theory

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogue and carnival and their use in political theory. The notion of language as developed by Bakhtin is analyzed in detail, whereby special attention is given to his idea of language as a system of utterances. These explorations serve to advance the idea of non-consensual dialogue. In this perspective, dialogue is a vehicle of reflexive understanding that is an assimilation of someone else’s ideas into one’s own conceptual system. This concept of dialogue is presented as an alternative to the Habermasian notion of dialogue and to the concept of hegemony as developed by Ernesto Lacalu and Chantal Mouffe. In the second part of the chapter, the concept of carnival is discussed. In Bakhtin, carnival is not just a particular festivity, but an existential feature of human nature which enables people to form intimate bonds outside any institutional circumstances. On this model, carnival can be treated as a liminal example of democracy insofar as democracy needs constant change and re-construction of its institutions and habits.