Laclau Research Articles

Populism vs. the Popular in South African Literature

While the damage done by populist leaders to the social fabric and aspirations of ordinary citizens is a staple of postcolonial African fiction across the continent, the subject is still relatively under-explored in South African novels written since the end of apartheid. There is a substantial and ever-growing body of dystopian writing focusing on the disappointments of everyday life in the rainbow nation, but the question of leadership has yet to emerge as the subject of serious or sustained attention. The anomaly is doubly curious, given that leaders are sharply scrutinized in the political press, in print and online. With reference to Ernesto Laclau’s On Populist Reason, the essay takes a long view of a century of South African writing and proposes that there is a fault-line between populism, as a manipulative and sectarian appeal to ‘the people,’ and the popular, as an ethically credible and often necessary rallying point. The essay teases out this tension in some key historical fictions of the New African period and then examines further, nuanced elaborations in A.C. Jordan’s Ingqumbo Yeminyana (The Wrath of the Ancestors), Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter, correspondence between Mongane Serote and Lionel Abrahams, and later fiction and poetry. The essay reaches the obvious but nevertheless polemical conclusion that the very power and durability of the popular throughout the decades of apartheid might also be the impediment that has to be overcome if the dangers of populism are to be squarely confronted.

Sounding the Present: Crisis and Collective Voice in David Peace's GB84

This article explores the relationship between socio-economic crisis and collective voice in GB84 (2004), David Peace's novel about the 1984-85 miners' strike in Thatcherite Britain. Peace's novel, I argue, asks us to think about the formation of collectives not primarily in terms of shared and socially allocated positions of ontological precariousness but by returning us to a more fully collectivist politics. The commitments of Peace's formally experimental novel can be situated in relation to the artistic tradition of "proletarian modernism," but GB84 also usefully defamiliarizes recent theorizations of collective agency in aesthetic and political theory, including work by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (on the multitude) and by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (on the possibility of a left populism).

Laclau’s Revolutionary Political Theology

One of the ways of thinking God in contemporary philosophy is reflecting on violence. In fact, reflecting on violence implies always at the same time to refer to the difficulty of thinking about the co-implication of law and violence, a typical prerogative of divine action. From this perspec-tive, political theology is concerned with the status and the possibilities or impossibilities of rep-resenting violence in a given political order. Three are the classical texts in the backdrop of this reflection on the hiatus between law and violence: Walter Benjamin Critique of Violence of 1921, Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology of 1922 and Derrida’s Force of Law of 1989. The article exam-ines another paradigm, that of Ernesto Laclau. The article concludes that only a non-presentable idea of God as a negative fundament allows for a non-authoritarian political idea. But this non-presentable character is only made possible by revolutionary politics.

Metáfora tópica y prácticas sociales: hacia una crítica de la práctica articulatoria de Laclau

En el presente trabajo especificamos el tratamiento que Ernesto Laclau y Chantal Mouffe ofrecen del concepto práctica articulatoria en Hegemonía y Estrategia Socialista a partir de una relectura de la tópica marxista. Para esto, partimos de que la contradicción señalada en Hegemonía y Estrategia Socialista entre la determinación en última instancia y el concepto de sobredeterminación se presenta en el momento en el cual se identifica práctica articulatoria con articulación discursiva. En este sentido, pretendemos insertar el concepto de práctica en la metáfora tópica, siguiendo la formulación propuesta por Louis Althusser. Se ha señalado reiteradamente que el abandono de Laclau y Mouffe de la tradición marxista implica una concepción que reduce lo social al discurso. En este trabajo nos interesa explorar la hipótesis según la cual este movimiento lleva implícita una salida de la tópica en la cual una práctica tiene primacía sobre del conjunto de las prácticas sociales.

CARTOGRAFIAS POROSAS: UM CAMINHO PARA COMPREENDER O(S) SENTIDO(S) DE ESPACIALIDADE(S) NA AMAZÔNIA

Esse artigo focaliza a(s) Cartografia(s) em um campo político, problematizando os sentidos de espacialidade que estão em constante negociação e disputas nos processos de mapeamentos. Tais reflexões partem de uma perspectiva teórico-metodológica pós-estruturalista, sob a ótica da Teoria do Discurso de Ernesto Laclau e Chantal Mouffe, tecendo diálogos com estudos pós-coloniais e decoloniais, juntamente com as contribuições dos estudos da cartografia crítica e humanista. Percebe-se com isso os impactos da universalização de uma concepção de linguagem que no limite ocultam outras Cartografias ao negarem as diferenças no que tange ao processo de representação espacial. Através dessas reflexões é proposto o reconhecimento de uma Cartografia Porosa (e, portanto, pluralista) na tentativa de legitimar e respeitar outras práticas de conceber, representar e mapear o mundo.

ANALISIS WACANA HATE SPEECH DALAM LIVE STREAMING YOUTUBE LIGAGAME E-SPORTS TV

Technological development on online communication was creating various communication on the internet, one of them is live streaming features on Youtube. Communication variation on the internet still has a problem, one of them is the existence of hate speech on the comment section in live streaming Youtube of Ligagame eSports TV Youtube Channel. Theory of Discourse from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe become guidelines to analyze the discourse formed from caster so that appeared hate speech from audience comment, which that hate speech divided into some type of cyberbullying. To analyze that, the researcher does observation or directly observe when live streaming been held and interview part of Kominfo Salatiga as a data triangulation. The result of the research shows that delivery like anything brought by the caster in streaming would still bring up hate speech comment from the audience, and a caster can react with the reply the hate speech argument from the audience, offer a solution to stop hate speech from appearing, or just ignore that comment.Keywords: Hate Speech, Caster, Discourse, Youtube, Cyberbullying.

The theory of hegemony: Laclau’s path not taken

The article revisits the theory of hegemony of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and shows how a normative injunction, which according to Laclau is not compatible with the hegemonic logic, is not only possible but a necessary condition for hegemony to function. The article claims that the path to demonstrate this involves rethinking the relationship between the theory of hegemony and Derridean deconstruction. Following criticisms that the theory of hegemony overlooks the aporetic nature of Derridean undecidability that it nevertheless relies upon, the hegemonic logic is submitted to a deconstructive reading, which reveals an internal aporia in it. It is further argued that the unaccounted aporia in the logic of hegemony explains the theory’s inability to satisfactorily account for its essential theoretical underpinning, the radical exclusion. However, the article also demonstrates that the aporia does not destroy hegemonic logic but, instead, supplements it by a normative dimension, by a demand of opening to the other as other.

Governing Through Polls: Politics of Representation and Presidential Support in Putin's Russia

Russian elections have been severely compromised by allegations of fraud, which makes public opinion polls an important source of information about popular support for Vladimir Putin and his policies. Putin's high ratings as well as the wide use of polls by his administration suggest that his rule is essentially democratic. This paper challenges this view by discussing the specific conception of democratic representation behind polling practices. Far from being a perfect mode of representation, opinion polls are capable of manufacturing the political reality they represent. The paper demonstrates how Russian authorities use polls to replace referenda and to legitimize the results of elections and thereby exposes the representational machine that turns polls into an efficient tool for governance, maintaining the hegemony and promoting de-politicisation. The distinction between partial and total representation, drawn from Ernesto Laclau's work, serves to illuminate the cases when polls and official election returns actually diverge and shows how the legitimacy of a regime is secured by the politics of representation that leaves a significant part of the Russian population unrepresented.

Evangelicals and Politics in Argentina: Pentecostalism as a Constructive Framework of (New?) Political Identities

This paper aims to analyze the case of the Christian Centre New Life (Centro Cristiano Nueva Vida - CCNV), a Pentecostal church in the City of Buenos Aires that is part of the spectrum of evangelical churches in Argentina, but represents a particular case within that field, in terms of theological, religious and, especially, socio-political views. The study of the CCNV will allow us to explore how “the evangelical” and “the Pentecostal” represent floating signifiers (Ernesto Laclau) that can enable a diversity of ritual practices, institutionalization processes, and ethical and political positions within the same spaces of identity. According to the way in which these identities are addressed (theologically and philosophically), the contexts in which they are found and the processes of political articulation in which they are located, the results and practices can differ considerably, even antagonistically. From the approaches in the Argentine academy on the relationship between Pentecostalisms and politics, we will develop a definition of political identity based on the construction of religious identities. Then, we will analyze the construction of identitarian imaginaries and their consequences in political terms within the CCNV, especially focusing on how they stress, confront, and dispute hegemonic senses within the Argentine evangelical field.

Marksizm’den Post-Marksizm’e Farklı Siyasal Açılımlar

Post-Marksizm, tüm toplumların tarihi sınıf mücadeleleri tarihidir çeklindeki geleneksel Marksist düşünceden farklı olarak, merkezinde sınıf mücadelesinin, sınıf sömürüsünün yer aldığı tarihsel materyalizmin reddi üzerine oturur. Bu çalışmaya konu olan temel sorunsal Marksizm’den başlayıp post-Marksizm’e uzanan tarihsel süreç içinde oluşan siyasal ve ideolojik uğrakların kuramsal çözümlemesini amaçlamaktadır. Hedeflenen bu çerçevede Marksist düşüncenin gelişimi; Ferdinand de Saussure’ün dilbilim ve Lèvi Strauss’un antropoloji alanındaki yapısalcı toplum kavrayışı; yapısalcı Marksizm’in yapı özne arasındaki ilişkiden hareketle geliştirdiği sınıf, siyaset ve devlet çözümlemesi; Post-Fordizmin gelişimiyle birlikte sınıf mücadelesinin yerini farklı toplumsal hareketlere bırakması ve post-Marksist düşüncenin en yetkin ifadesi olarak kabul edilen Ernesto Laclau ve Chantal Mouffe’un söylem kuramı üzerinde durulmaktadır.

Enemies at the Gateway: Regional Populist Discourse and the Fight Against Oil Pipelines on Canada's West Coast

This paper explores discursive strategies of opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker project – a proposal to link Alberta oil sands producers to international markets via Canada’s West Coast. It explores how regional concerns about Northern Gateway helped galvanize a movement led by regional First Nations, environmentalists, and settler communities, all of whom opposed Gateway as a means to protect regional ecosystems – and the local communities dependent on them – from “extra-regional” Gateway-backing elites. By articulating arguments against Northern Gateway with salient collective action frames concerning ecological sustainability, regional identity, Indigenous sovereignty, social justice, and democratic agency, this anti-Gateway ‘discourse coalition’ helped contribute to the project’s ultimate collapse in 2016. In this paper, we critically engage with Ernesto Laclau’s theorization of populism to analyse this movement as a form of “regional ecological populism”, explaining how a shift in spatial framing from the national to the regional enabled a particular variant of populist discourse to emerge. Furthermore, we relate Laclau’s framework to Hajer’s concept of discursive “storylines” and Gamson’s analysis of “collective action frames” to pivot away from Laclau’s focus on the ontological construction of unified popular subjects to a more grounded analysis of how coalitions articulate populist storylines designed to mobilize diverse movement constituents. In doing so, we draw on a frame analysis of communications materials produced by several prominent First Nations and environmental organizations publicly mobilizing against Northern Gateway between 2010 and 2015, tracing how these groups came to articulate a common regional ecological populist storyline. Finally, we end with some thoughts about the possibilities and challenges for scaling up regional ecological populism in Canada.

From Marxist to Post-Marxist Populism: Ernesto Laclau’s Trajectory within the National Left and Beyond

Abstract Ernesto Laclau’s Marxist and post-Marxist works are best understood when they are embedded in the history of Argentina’s National Left. This socialist-populist current underpinned his strategic horizons onward of at least 1963. While purely theoretical interpretations of Laclau can sometimes be enlightening, they tend to lose sight of the historical density of the Argentine’s thought. Over the course of his working life, Laclau’s theories presented the Argentinean Left with a challenge concerning how to engage with Peronism: specifically, how to develop a leftist hegemonic project in an era when the working class remained stubbornly linked to a Peronist political identity. Laclau’s political trajectory and his understanding of Marxism are analysed here in order to explain the nature of his post-Marxism.

Constitutional Migration and the Meaning of Religious Freedom: From Ireland and India to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

Building on current research regarding constitutional migration, this article shows how constitutional provisions protecting religious freedom (“subject to public order”) arrived in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, not via colonial British or traditional Islamic sources—both explicitly rejected—but via deliberate constitutional borrowing from “anti-colonial” precursors in Ireland and, especially, India. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau's notion of “empty signifiers,” the article highlights the shifting political circumstances that transformed the meaning of Pakistan's borrowed constitutional provisions. Even as core texts guaranteeing an individual's right to peaceful religious practice were imported, political, legal, and conceptual modulations ensured that specific forms of peaceful religious practice were refashioned as a source of religious provocation and, therein, public disorder. Far from protecting religious freedom, this repurposing of imported constitutional clauses tied to “the politics of public order” underpinned the formal legal restriction of an otherwise explicit right.

Where are Jacques and Ernesto when you need them? Rancière and Laclau on populism, experts and contingency

The response of academic intellectuals and political elites to populism is very often characterized by a mixture between outright disgust and helpless perplexity. This cannot come as a surprise, since the one thing that left and right populism have in common is that they consider the elites their enemy. The essay argues that the choice the elites have is either to openly voice their contempt for the uneducated masses, or to help educate them. However, as the contributions of Ernesto Laclau and Jacques Rancière on the topic show, this is more easily said than done. Moreover, to simply discard right-wing populism on the basis of its racist tendencies often simply serves to deflect the focus away from the legitimate grievances of those who follow – or ‘fall for’ – populist parties.

Du Bois, Dirt Determinism, and the Reconstruction of Global Value

Abstract W. E. B. Du Bois wrote extensively about African-American cotton growers and the Southern Black Belt, beginning with the sociological studies he conducted while at Atlanta University. Over time, his approach to these subjects became increasingly literary and experimental. He made the region—and specifically its dirt—a medium for analyzing the history and dynamics of racial capitalism, and for imagining forms of value not grounded in the violent extraction and mystification of black labor power. In doing so Du Bois countered the blame narrative developed by white southerners like Alfred Holt Stone, who attributed soil exhaustion and economic stagnation to the “monstrocity” of self-possessed black labor. He dismantles racist figures of black encumbrance, nomadism, and decay in which antebellum theories of climate determinism were retooled to promote new forms of racial exploitation. This essay analyzes Du Bois’s dirt poetics in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911). Drawing from Ernesto Laclau’s work on the rhetoricity of Marxist social movements, it examines the revolutionary forms of radical contingency that Du Bois discovers at the intersection of linguistic and economic value.

‘Aversive’ democracy, ‘contentious’ politics and ‘agonistic’ populism: comparative experience and implications for contemporary North Africa

ABSTRACT There is a vast social science literature on the politics of protest and ‘bottom up’ mobilisation. One strand concerns peaceful protest is stable constitutional systems. Another deals with revolutionary mobilisation to overthrow repressive regimes. This article focuses on an intermediate cluster of recent contributions of more direct relevance to today’s Maghreb. These all concern mass movements seeking more inclusive democratic dispensations. Such mobilisations are voluntary and pluralist in spirit (not revolutionary) and so favour peaceful and inclusionary forms of expression. 1 But they confront regimes that lack constitutional legitimacy, and that in their insecurity may react with arbitrary repression. So these processes involve acute uncertainty and intense risk for participants. Three main approaches are outlined and compared. Aletta Norval draws from her South African experience in her formulation of ideas about ‘aversive’ democracy. Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly have produced ground breaking work on ‘contentious’ politics that partly reflects their base in the USA. The Essex school inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe is more attuned to Latin American and some European experiences of ‘agonistic’ mobilisation. While all three approaches have important ideas to contribute, each also displays conceptual and empirical limitations. This article aims to highlight the useful insights of each, and provide some guidance about how well they ‘travel’ to North Africa, and how lessons from this region might be fed back into the global debate about ‘informal’ political activism in the twenty-first century.

Neoconservadurismo versus populismo socialdemócrata. Una comparación de los discursos anticorrupción de Iván Duque y Gustavo Petro en la segunda vuelta presidencial de 2018

El argumento central de este artículo es que los discursos anticorrupción de los entonces candidatos presidenciales Iván Duque y Gustavo Petro durante la campaña electoral de 2018 reflejan sus respectivas ideologías: neoconservadurismo y populismo socialdemócrata, respectivamente. Se analizan los discursos durante la campaña presidencial de 2018, combinando el análisis conceptual de las ideologías desarrollado por Michael Freeden y el maco teórico de análisis discursivo de Ernesto Laclau y Chantal Mouffe. A diferencia de la gran mayoría de trabajos sobre la corrupción en Colombia esta investigación no se enfoca en evaluar las propuestas anticorrupción sino en desentrañar sus presupuestos ideológicos. Se encontró que, desde la perspectiva neoconservadora, Duque identifica la corrupción principalmente en el sector público y su propuesta anticorrupción se limita a reformar el Estado, sin cambiar las estructuras socioeconómicas del país; el discurso anticorrupción de Petro refleja su populismo socialdemócrata, donde la corrupción emerge como característica de la clase política y de un sistema socioeconómico altamente desigual en general, cuya eliminación implica la transformación de las estructuras políticas, sociales y económicas de Colombia.

Radical democracy and left populism after the squares: ‘Social Movement’ (Ukraine), Podemos (Spain), and the question of organization

This article begins with a theoretical tension. Radical democracy, in the joint work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, can be understood as a joint articulation of a post-foundational ontology of contingency and a politics of autonomy of ‘democratic struggles’ within a hegemonic bloc as loci of antagonisms in their own right, while Laclau’s theory of populism marks a shift from the autonomy of struggles to the representative function of the empty signifier as a constitutive dimension. This tension between a horizontal logic of autonomy and a vertical logic of representation comes to the fore not least in the manifold attempts to combine radical-democratic and (left-)populist practices in the wake of the ‘movements of the squares.’ This argument is illustrated empirically in the cases of two party projects situating themselves in contexts of social protest—‘Social Movement’ in Ukraine and Podemos in Spain—both of which seek to combine a left-populist discursive strategy with some form of radical-democratic politics of autonomy, either by supporting local alliances independent from the party (Podemos) or by integrating trade union representatives into the organizational center, which in turn finds expression in a representative logic (‘Social Movement’).

The Logic of Capital and Hegemonic Logic

ABSTRACT This article aims at establishing a dialogue between the theory of hegemony of Ernesto Laclau and the categorial interpretation of Marx by Moishe Postone. First, I will show that the hegemonic logic of Laclau appears logically constituted by the dynamic of capital as Postone studies it. Second, I will defend the relevance of the hegemonic conception of politics, no longer as an originary social ontology, but as a limited (yet partially effective) social logic characteristic of capitalist society.

Populism

Populism refers to forms of politics that put 'the people' at their centre, but the way 'the people' is understood varies widely. Questions of left populism have gained significant traction and engagement in the last decade - and this is a key focus of this article. While recognising the importance of Ernesto Laclau's analysis in On Populist Reason, the authors argue that his work is hindered by an overly formalist account of the political. Stuart Hall's writings on Thatcherism offer a more contextual and situated engagement with particular populist strategies, and have continuing relevance for understanding right-wing populism. Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece offer actually existing experiences of left populism. We discuss three limitations in their strategies: their 'nationed' narratives of the crisis; the relationship between the parties' leadership and grassroots politics; and the nature of their engagement with internationalist political projects. Part of the critical terms series