Rethinking The Political

Rethinking the Political
A Genealogy of the Antagonism in Carl Schmitt through

the Lens of Laclau-Mouffe-iek
R i c a r d o C a m a r g o
Faculty of Law, Universidad de Chile
THE DI STI NCTI ON BETWEEN THE NOTI ON OF THE POLITICAL AND POLITICS HAS
recently acquired a great relevance in continental and Anglo-Saxon philoso-
phy. According to Oliver Marchart, it is a distinction that, despite originating
in the canonical work of Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1927), has
only recently reached a disciplinarian status (2007, 4). As a reference, it is
worth mentioning the recently inaugurated course of the Modern and Con-
temporary History of the Political in the Collge of France in 2001, which was
launched by Pierre Rosanvallon (2003). Another example of this institutional
settlement of the notion of the political, this time in Germany, is the admis-
sion into current historical dictionaries of the distinction between Politik and
das Politische (Sellin 1978; Vollrath 1990). In turn, in the Anglo-Saxon aca-
demic environment, such a distinction has been abundantly used, as it is
possible to observe in the works of Beardsworth (1996), Dillon (1996),
CR: The New Centennial Review, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2013, pp. 161188. ISSN 1532-687X.
2013 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.
1 6 1
This work originally appeared in CR: The New Centennial Review, 13.1, Spring 2013, published by Michigan State University Press.
Stavrakakis (1999), Arditi and Valentine (1999), Williams (2000), and Mar-
chart (2007). Finally, in Chile, it is worth mentioning the works compiled in
the journal Actuel Marx no. 3: First Semester (2005), as an example of this
tendency.
Politics has traditionally been understood as the activity of attending to
the general arrangement of a collection of people who, in respect of their
common recognition of a manner of attending to its arrangements, compose
a single community . . . as it has been summarized by Chantal Mouffe refer-
ring to Michael Oakeshotts traditional notion of politics (Mouffe 1993, 16). By
contrast, the meaning of the political is far from being unequivocally estab-
lished. Furthermore, since the time inwhich the defnitionof the political was
for the frst time famously usedby Schmitt as the specifc political distinction
to which the motives and political actions can be reduced, which for Schmitt
is just the relationship betweenfriends and enemies (1996, 26), the notionof
the political has presented a wide range of different meanings. For instance, if
we consider the works of Paul Ricur (1965), Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and
Jean-Luc Nancy (1997), Claude Lefort (1988), Alain Badiou (1985, 1998, 2002)
and Jacques Rancire (1995), to mention only members of the so-called post-
Heideggerians left in France, the political has alternatively meant logical
rationality, public sphere, the event or the shore of the abyss.
But, if the political presents a wide range of different meanings, howcan it
be possible that such a notion of the political has emerged as a valid concep-
tual category? Furthermore, would it explain that the emergence of the
political has taken place, despite the diverse and sometime contradictory
meanings linked to its name?
The central purpose of this paper is to extend the routes that have, until
now, been explored by contemporary political theory as a response to such
questions. This is done with the explicit intention of exploring a new avenue
that, I will argue, would silently lie in the recent debate on the political,
developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, on the one hand, and
Slavoj iek, on the other. Furthermore, what I will propose in this paper is
a revitalization of the notion of antagonism to expand the limits of both
the notion of the political and, subsequently, of a radical democratic
project.
1 6 2 R e t h i n k i n g t h e P o l i t i c a l
For this purpose, it is frst necessary totake intoaccount that the revival of
the political in contemporary political theory has only been possible because
of the emergence of a so-called postfoundational paradigm, which has in-
sisted on asserting a radical opposition to any totally closed conception of
politics. As Marchart has pointed out, the spring of the new grammar of the
political is explained more by the limitations of a traditional notion of poli-
tics, assumed as a conceptual category that cannot satisfactorily explain the
foundation of a radically newsocial order, rather than on the pretension of an
internal conceptual coherence associated with this newcategory of the polit-
ical (2007, 49). Instead, the emergence of the political wouldbe the symptom
of the incapacity (andimpossibility) of politics to produce a total assimilation
between the ontological and the ontic dimensions of the social, that is, be-
tween what the social really is beyond its historical contingent determina-
tions and what it would become when such determinations are present. It is
such a gap between the ontological and the ontic dimensions that explains
both the institutional arrangements and the political practice taking place
around them, this is to say, the feld of the really institutionalized politics
would always demandaccordingly to Marchartan undecible supplement
to account for the groundless dimension of society. As Marchart has argued:
As soon as we accept that society cannot be grounded, and never will be, in a
solidfoundation, essence, or centre, precisely that impossibility of foundation
acquires a role that must be called (quasi-)transcendental with respect to
particular attempts at founding society (2007, 7). However, this supplement
cannot be assumed as a new foundation, at least, not as a defnitive founda-
tion of society. As Marchart has signaled out, on the one hand, the politi-
cal, as the instituting moment of society, functions as a supplementary
ground to the groundless stature of society, yet on the other hand this
supplementary ground withdraws in the very moment in which it insti-
tutes the social (2007, 8).
Therefore, in this postfoundational perspective there seems to be a com-
monality that persists beyond the wide range of meanings linked to such a
notion of the political, this is the impossibility of setting a defnitive social
order. In fact, what seems to lie below the different theorizations of the
political is the presence of a fundamental andconstituent lack at the center of
R i c a r d o C a m a r g o 1 6 3
its rival traditional notion of politics. This lack is what would prevent politics
from becoming an absolute totality. Moreover, what we are really talking
about here is not only a constituent lack but also an obliterate one that is very
often systematically ignored for totalizing or naturalizing conceptions of
politics. These traditional conceptions of politics very often assume as their
more idiosyncratic feature the forgetting of the constituent moment of the
foundation of the social, which is another way to refer to the forgetting of the
political.
In turn, the emergence of the the political as a central problematic in
contemporary political theory is closely linked to the crisis of totalizing foun-
dational paradigms. This is a crisis that can be traced back to: (1) the post-
structuralist thesis of the subversion of the sign in traditional linguistics,
frstly formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure in Cours de linguistique gnrale
1916 (Course in General Linguistics); (2) the primacy (through the notion of the
real) of the signifer over the signifedpostulatedby Lacan; and(3) the critique
of an essentialist way of thinking Marxs main postulates, carried out through
the extension of Gramscis notion of hegemony, by Ernesto Laclau and Chan-
tal Mouffe inHegemony andSocialist Strategy (1985). As a consequence of this
general rejection of the foundational paradigm, the politicalstruggling to
escape from the anonymity to which it had been reduced by a traditional
foundational politicswould be shown in the sense in which Wittgenstein
used to says that what cannot be said can be shown, the undecidability of
the social, the limits of every objectivity (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, 125).
1
Therefore, the political means toreveal the fundamental aporias within
a discourse as it has been suggested by Torfng (1999, 307). In other words,
the political simultaneously comes to be the constitution of the social ob-
jectivity and the expression of the limits of every social objectivity. Better, it is
the condition of possibility of the constitution of the social (which politics
normally tends to forget) and the condition of impossibility of its defnitive
closure (which politics misleadingly tends to assert). However, if that is the
case, the interrogations that now arise from such an understanding of the
political are as follows: how does such a showing take place? Is it just a
deliberative phenomenon a` la Arendt? Or rather is it an antagonistic relation
a` la Schmitt? And if it would come to be an antagonistic relation, what sort of
antagonism are we talking about, and what are the ways in which such
antagonism is constituted?
This paper will focus on the analysis of these questions (and their
preliminary answers). Accordingly, I will follow one of the avenues re-
cently opened by contemporary political theory toward the understanding
of the political, one that comes about apropos the debate deployed by
Laclau-Mouffe and iek on the notions of antagonism-(dislocation)-
agonism and act, as parts of a new architecture of a revitalized notion of
the political a` la Schmitt.
T H E N O T I O N O F T H E P O L I T I C A L : F R O M
S C H M I T T T O L A C L A U - M O U F F E
The option in favor of a notion of the political, that assumes as its principal
denotation the idea of antagonism, does not however imply ascribing to the
division very often adopted by the literature in the feld (Marchart 2007, 38)
between, on the one hand, those authors who understand the political, or the
moment of the political, as an original associative practice, that is, a practice
of primitive pacts, co-associations and confederations ruled by the fed-
eral principle, the principle of the league and alliance between autonomous
unities that emerge from the elemental conditions of their own action, as
has classically been defended by Hannah Arendt (1988, 36970).
2
And, by
contrast, another group of scholars who have always emphasized the disso-
ciative character of the political, Carl Schmitt being the more known repre-
sentative of such a tendency but among whom one certainly could also
mention Mouffe (2005), Laclau, and probably iek. Furthermore, as it has
been developed elsewhere (Camargo 2010), what is really being argued here is
the idea that it would be very possible to assume a more productive relation-
shipbetweenthe antagonistic andthe deliberative dimensions of the political
as two mutually contaminated moments; two felds that would come to sup-
plement each otherin a Derridean sensein a way that neither of these two
dimensions could even exist without the other. To open space for this
possibility, it is key to revisit the thesis of a radical democracy that Ernesto
Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have been developing since their canonical work
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985). We will assume such a thesis of a
radical democracy as one coherently inserted within the current dispute for
distinguishing between the notion of politics and the political (Marchart
2007, 3660). In other words, what it is aimed here is to place such a thesis
withinabroader theoretical effort for rescuingas Mouffe has argued(2000a,
149)the Greek sense of termplemos, whichis noother thanthe spirit of war
andbattle belonging toany kindof politics.
3
Indeed, inHegemony andSocialist
Strategy Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe conclude that the project for a
radical democracy:
[is] a form of politics which is founded not upon dogmatic postulation of any
essence of the social, but, on the contrary, on an affrmation of the contingency
and ambiguity of every essence, and on the constitutive character of the social
division and antagonism. (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, 193, emphasis added)
The point that Laclau and Mouffe want to emphasize is that the peculiar-
ity of a project for radical democracy would not be exclusively placed on its
programmatic content (more freedoms, more equality for everybody, etc.)
but rather on its political form. The political form would be the key factor for
assigning to democracy its radical character. Now, what would be this pecu-
liar political form of a radical democracy, referred to by Laclau and Mouffe?
The answer provided by Laclau and Mouffe is clear and categorical: the
antagonism.
In this way, the centrality Laclau and Mouffe give to the notion of antago-
nism allows us to assert that not only Mouffe, but also Laclau, ascribe in a
singular way to the specifc political distinction that Carl Schmitt proposes in
his classic text The Concept of the Political (1927).
4
As it is well known, Schmitt argued in favor of a clear criterion for distin-
guishing the political fromother kind of disputed actions. In the moral order,
he says, the basic ordering criteria is goodandevil, inthe esthetic dimension
it is beautiful and ugly, and in the economic sphere the criteria is proftable
and unproftable. However, the specifc political distinction to which
political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and
enemy (1996, 26). The important point to have in mind here is that Schmitt
wants to stress that the phenomenon of the political can be understood only
in the context of the ever present possibility of the friend-and-enemy group-
ing, regardless of the implications of this possibility for morality, aesthetics,
and economics (1996, 35).
It is worth highlighting that the friend-and-enemy grouping criterion
only means, for Schmitt, an operative rule to set up the political. For Schmitt,
this does not mean, of course, an exhaustive defnition of the political (an
impossible task) or an attempt to describe the substantial contents of the
political (1996, 26). However, what Schmitt clearly affrms is that the friend-
and-enemy grouping is a criterion relatively autonomous from the other
moral, esthetical, and economic antithesis mentioned by him. Furthermore,
The political enemy, says Schmitt,need not be morally evil or aesthetically
ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be
advantageous to engage with him in business transactions (1996, 27). And
Schmitt adds, But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; andit is suffcient
for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something
different and alien, so that in the extreme case conficts with himare possible
(1996, 27, emphases added).
The expressions that Schmitt uses to refer to the enemy as the other, the
stranger . . . existentially something different and alien, are key to under-
standing how Laclau and Mouffe will carve out their notion of antagonism.
However, before showing how Laclau and Mouffe deploy their notion of
antagonism, it is worth clarifying that Schmitts category of the enemy does
not refer to a mere competitor of the liberal feld or just any partner of a
confict ingeneral (Schmitt 1996, 28). AndSchmitt will add, He is alsonot the
private adversary whom one hates (1996, 28). On the contrary, for Schmitt,
an enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fghting collectivity of
people confronts a similar collectivity (1996, 28). For Schmitt, therefore, the
political is always related to a collective against another collective; it is not an
individual endeavor. This feature of the political also can be recognized in La-
claus work. Indeed, althoughLaclauhas explicitly assumedthat the basic unit of
aprocess of articulationis asocial demand (2005, 7273), not analready consti-
tutedgroup, thearticulatorypolitical processhasasitsmaintasktheconstitution
of the people, which for Laclau will always become an antagonistic group.
Furthermore, Schmitt will add another decisive feature in characterizing
the political; one that makes Schmitts conception of the political a transindi-
vidual theory. Indeed, the enemy referred to by Schmitt is solely the public
enemy (1996, 28). The enemy, Schmitt affrms, is hostis, not inimicus in the
broader sense, polemios, not echthros (1996, 28). Schmitt adds here a footnote
that will clarify the sense that he has in mind. He says:
In his Republic (Bk. V, Ch. XVI, 470), Plato strongly emphasizes the contrast
between the public enemy (polemios) and the private one (echthros), but in
connection with other antithesis of war and insurrection, upheaval, rebellion,
civil war. Real war, for Plato, is a war between Hellenes and Barbarians only
(those who are by nature enemies) whereas conficts among Hellenes are for
him discords. (1996, 2829 n. 9)
This is the reasonwhy, inthe Schmittianperspective, it is possible that the
enemy in the political sense cannot be personally hated, at least not as a
necessary condition for making himor her an enemy. Even more, it would not
be contradictory behavior that in the private sphere one can love his enemy,
following in this way the Christian dictate Love your enemies (Matt. 5:44;
Luke 6:27) because, as Schmitt has emphasized, this quotation has to be read
as diligite inimicos vestros and not diligite hostes vestros. No mention is made
of the political enemy (1996, 29). For Schmitt, the clear understanding of the
aforementioned distinction between public and private enemy within the
world view of the Middle Ages is what would explain the fact that neverin
the thousand-year struggle between Christian and Moslemsdid [does] it
occur to a Christian to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love
toward the Saracens or Turks (1996, 29).
It is also a clear appreciationof the distinctionbetweenpublic andprivate
enemy that wouldhave allowedSchmitt toconclude, without any riskof being
accused of promoting personal hatred (something that, in fact, happened
because of his adhesion to the German National Socialist Party in May 1933),
that the political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every
concrete antagonism becomes much more political the closer it approaches
the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping (1996, 29).
Indeed, understood in this way, as a public enemy, the intensity of the
political, whichis closely linkedtothe friend-enemy groupingcriterion, would
not appear a priori particularly problematic. Moreover, as I will argue later in
this paper, this public meaning attributed to the notion of the enemy allows
us to propose a point of encounter between the classic work of Schmitt on the
political and those contemporary theorizations formulated by Laclau and
Mouffe on radical democracy.
There are, however, two additional caveats that are important to mention
to explain why Schmitts conception of the political has become so problem-
atic for current trends in radical democratic theory. First, Schmitts fnal
argumentation on the determination of the political, as is known, is reserved
to the state. Second, the apparently inevitable blurring of the distinction
between public and internal enemy proposed by Schmitt in real politics is
problematic. On the frst issue, Schmitt always restricts the determination of
the political to the power of a particular historical agent, the state: In its
entirety the state as an organized political entity decides for itself the friend-
enemy distinction (1996, 2930). The reduction of the political to the state is
something that appears nowadays as very limited, if not contradictory, for a
project of aradical democracy. Furthermore, this is areductionof the political
that has always been rejected by Laclau and Mouffe. However, this fact alone
should not make us forget the potential that Schmitts thesis, which locates
the political in the sphere of the public enemy, presents for a revival of a
radical democracy. This is something that has frequently been omitted in the
wide range of literature that normally ends up rejecting altogether Schmitts
theoretical endeavor.
5
In the next section, however, I will present an effort to
rescue Schmitts brilliant insight of the notion of the political by revisiting the
notion of antagonism in the works of Laclau and Mouffe.
Before doing that, I will briefy mention the other aspect of Schmitts
theorization of the political that has normally reduced its current accep-
tance among scholars working on contemporary political theory. The
point can be summarized as follows: even if it would be usefulas its
argued hereto keep the localization of the political in the sphere of the
public enemy in contrast to private or personal disputes, it seems unjusti-
fed to reduce this antinomy, as a criterion to localize the political, only to
conficts that would take place among states, as Schmitt does in The
Concept of the Political. In fact, Schmitt, clarifying his distinction between
public and private enemies says, The thought expressed here is that a
people cannot wage war against itself and a civil war is only a self-
laceration and it does not signify that perhaps a new state or even a new
people is being created . . . (1996, 2829 n. 9).
Furthermore, this reduction of the political cannot currently be accepted
without reservations, because it ignores that, according to Schmitt, the polit-
ical demands only a friend-enemy grouping criterion. There is no reasonnot
to apply this criterion to disputes taking place within the state as well. It is
worth noticing, however, that this is the point that Schmitt was ultimately
able toacknowledge andtheorize inhis late works, particularly inhis Theory of
the Partisan (1963).
T H E N O T I O N O F A N T A G O N I S M I N L A C L A U A N D M O U F F E
The genealogy of the notion of the political as the other, the stranger . . .
existentially something different and alien proposed by Schmitt (1996, 29),
allows us to make a connection with the notion of antagonism developed by
Laclau and Mouffe. The frst idea that is worth asserting here is that Laclau
develops his notion of antagonism without explicit mention of Schmitts
theses. Indeed, neither Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Laclaus most well
known book, coauthored with Chantal Mouffe (1985), nor Populist Reason
(2005), Laclaus last book, make any reference to Schmitts work. Mouffe, on
the contrary, apart from Hegemony and Strategy Socialist, has made the
friend-enemy grouping criterion a central premise of her whole corpus writ-
tenafterward, notably inThe Returnof the Political (1993), The Challenge of Carl
Schmitt (1999), The Democratic Paradox (2000b) and On the Political (2005).
This does not mean, however, that such a criterion is completely absent from
Laclaus work, but, to appreciate its real value, it will require an exercise of
visibility, presented as follows.
In Metaphor and Social Antagonisms, Laclau repeats what has been a
central question during his whole intellectual endeavor: Are there certain
experiences in which the vanity of the movement itself, the ultimate impossi-
bility of any objectivity, manifests itself? (1988, 255).
The answer, says Laclau, is that sucha moment exists inSocietyit is the
moment of antagonism (1988, 255).
The antagonismLaclau, and also Mouffe, will affrm has largely been
studied, but mainly from analytic perspectives that ask how and why antago-
nisms come about. However, what is usually ignored in such theoretical
endeavors is a more ontological interrogation. This is a pending theoretical
work. According to Laclau and Mouffe one must dare to ask what an antago-
nistic relationship would really be and what sort of relationship would it
assume among objects. Curiously, far fromrecalling the aid of Schmitts work
for the resolution of these last questions, Laclau and Mouffe use the analysis
provided by Lucio Colleti, a contemporary ItalianMarxist (Laclauand Mouffe
2001, 12227). Colletti, in an article published in 1975 in the New Left Review,
retheorizes the distinction between the categories of real opposition (one
featuredby objects that already have their ownindividual positivity before the
relation is constituted) and logical contradiction (which takes place when in
the same proposition one of the terms of the proposition affrms something
that the other term denies). As is well known for Laclau and Mouffe, this is a
distinction that has been originally formulated by Kant in his essay The
Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy
(1763). Colletti retakes this Kantian distinction to show how Hegel, who, for
Colletti, has wrongly reduced the whole of reality to the concept, would
attempt to introduce logical contradictions into reality. Marxism, says Col-
letti, because of its materialist character as a doctrine, cannot make roomfor
such a mistake and must reject analyzing antagonisms as logical contradic-
tions. Instead, it should assume them as real oppositions (Laclau and Mouffe
2001, 123).
Laclau and Mouffe are certainly sympathetic with Collettis main target:
Hegels idealist conception of antagonisms. However, they will ultimately
reject Collettis conclusion that in conceptualizing antagonisms we would be
compelled by only one exclusive alternative, as Laclau and Mouffe have sum-
marized: either something is a real opposition, or it is a contradiction (2001,
123, emphasizes in original). This means that Laclau and Mouffe will also
reject this simplifcationderivedfromCollettis reasoning that there wouldbe
only two kinds of possible entities in reality: real objects or concepts.
Indeed, LaclauandMouffe will discardthe ideathat anantagonismwouldbe
areal opposition, becauseinareal oppositionthereisjust amaterial fact obeying
positive physical laws (2001, 123). And, they say, if we accept that anantagonism
could be assimilated to a crash between two already formed objects, ruled by
positive physical laws, we would also have to accept that in the feld of social
antagonismswhichis precisely the feldof analysis inwhichLaclauandMouffe
are interested inthe antagonistic character of class struggle, for instance,
shouldbe immediately assimilatedto a physical act by whicha policemanhits a
worker militant (2001, 123). For LaclauandMouffetoaccept theaforementioned
reductionwouldimply to confate a contingent outcome derivedfroma particu-
lar material confrontation(a hit froma policemanto a worker militant) with the
general and abstract character of what social antagonisms really are. However,
Laclau and Mouffe will also reject the idea that a logical contradiction would
imply an antagonistic relationship (2001, 12324). In fact, as they have asserted
we all participate in a number of mutually contradictory belief systems, and yet
no antagonism emerges from these contradictions (2001, 124). Furthermore, a
logical contradictionisoftenmoreamatter of ignoranceor confusionrather than
of an antagonism, this is to say, a relation between two entities, one of them
assumed as the other, the stranger . . . existentially something different and
alien as Schmitt (1996, 27) has affrmed.
Therefore, having shown that it is not plausible to homologize an antago-
nistic relation to a real opposition or a logical contradiction, Laclau and
Mouffe will ultimately ask whether the impossibility of assimilating antago-
nism to real opposition or to contradiction, is not the impossibility of assim-
ilating it to something shared by these types of relation (2001, 124).
Laclau and Mouffes answer to this question is clearly affrmative. Indeed,
LaclauandMouffewill assert that theydo, infact, sharesomething, andbythat is
the fact of being objective relationsbetween conceptual objects in the second
case, and between real objects in the frst (2001, 124, emphasis in original).
But what do objective relations really mean? For Laclau and Mouffe an
objective relationexists whenthe parties of a relationare entities that already
exist before the contradiction or opposition take place. In other words, the
parties of a relation must exhibit a fully constituted identity before their
relation takes place. Indeed, the only possibility that a logical contradiction
would become intelligible comes from the fact that the parties of such a
contradiction are fully constituted before the relation is deployed. This is
because a contradiction, by defnition, must come about as soon as a party
asserts its existence in relation to the other party.
In the case of real oppositions, the situation is similar. Such a relation
demands the pre-existence of two fully constituted entities in order for an
opposition to take place as an objective reality.
However, Laclau and Mouffe will add a new theoretical caveat that will at-
tempt to describe what the specifc feature of an antagonistic relation really
consists in. This caveat, it is argued here, would be assumed as a real theoretical
advance in favor of a revival of the notion of antagonismfromthe place in which
Schmitt has left it. Laclau and Mouffe affrm in this respect: But in the case of
antagonism, we are confronted with a different situation: the presence of the
Other prevents me from being totally myself. The relation arises not from full
totalities, but fromthe impossibility of their constitution (2001, 125).
The antagonismis, thus, for LaclauandMouffe a relationcharacterizedby
two main features. First, it is formed by two entities that are not fully consti-
tuted at the instant the relation is produced. Second, the full constitution of
the identity of the parties of such an antagonistic relation is ultimately re-
vealed as an impossible task. Furthermore, the important point to bear in
mind here is that what produces the incompleteness of the identity of an
entity in an antagonistic relation is precisely the experience of the presence
of the Other that impedes such an entity to become totally itself. As Laclau
and Mouffe have argued it is because a peasant cannot be a peasant that an
antagonismexists with the landowner expelling himfromhis land (2001, 125
emphasis in original).
However, here it is worthpausing toreviewLaclauandMouffes thesis onthe
characterof antagonismsmorecarefully. Theproblemtoreviewhereisasfollows:
if it istheexperience withtheOther that impedestheconstitutionof onesown
identityandthusgivesrisetoanantagonism, thequestiontoposeiswhethersuch
anexperiencewouldnecessarilybecomeanantagonisticrelation?Couldit rather
alternatively turn out to be a non-antagonistic relation?
In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), Laclau and Mouffe were not in a
position to properly answer that question. Indeed, in that work, Laclau and
Mouffe, after stressing that it is the experience of the no-identity producedby the
presenceof theOther that reallygivesrisetoanantagonism, theyassertedat the
same time andincertaincontradictionwiththe latter statement that: Insofar as
thereis antagonism, I cannot beafull presencefor myself. But nor is theforcethat
antagonizes me such a presence: its objective being is a symbol of my non-being
and, in this way, it is overfowed by a plurality of meanings which prevents its
being fxed as full positivity (2001, 125).
It is worth noticing that in this last quotation it is antagonism that is
presented as the antecedent of ones own no-identity and not vice versa as it
has been previously asserted by Laclau and Mouffe. This is the reason why
Laclau and Mouffe will conclude that, Antagonism, far from being an objec-
tive relation, is a relation wherein the limits of every objectivity are shownin
the sense in which Wittgenstein used to say that what cannot be said can be
shown (2001, 125 emphases in original). In other words, antagonismwould be
the witness of the impossible fnal suture of society.
Consideredinthat way, it is clear that LaclauandMouffe are recalling two
different types or meanings of the notion of antagonism. The frst meaning
would be related to the experience of a lack; an original lack. The second one
would refer to the fact that the antagonistic relation arising from such an
experience of the lack is built precisely to obliterate such a lack through an
articulating practice of antagonizing the Otherthe cause of the unpleas-
ant experience. These two meanings of antagonism have also been high-
lightedby Slavoj iek inhis article BeyondDiscourse Analysis. Inthis work,
iek has distinguished between the experience of the antagonism in its
radical way, as a limit of the social . . . and the antagonism as a relation be-
tweenpositions of the subject. Andhe has added: inLacanianterms we have
to distinguish the antagonism as the Real of the social reality from [the
antagonism expressed] in the antagonistic struggles (iek 2005, 276).
This distinction has ultimately been accepted by Laclau by introducing
the category of dislocation to refer to the frst meaning of antagonism, the
constitutive antagonism; the Lacanian Real. Furthermore, Laclau will reserve
the term antagonistic relation to point to the second meaning of antagonism
that inhis theory is always constitutedby logics of equivalence anddifference.
Laclauhas extensively developedthis latter sense of the notionof antagonism.
Infact, the whole process begins by a particular social demand that assumes
the representation of the totality of other demands (Laclau 2005, 73). They
become equivalent to each other without ever losing completely their partic-
ularity. Inthis process, the oppositiontothe Other signifes the impossibility
of the full constitution of identities. As a whole, this is an articulating practice
that Laclau has called hegemony, as long as it becomes successful in building
a new horizon of meanings (2005, 95).
Laclau has also recognized the evolution experienced by the notion of
antagonism within his theory. In fact, in his article Glimpsing the Future
(2004), he has said:
InHegemony andSocialist Strategy, the notionof limit is more or less synonymous
withantagonistic frontier. Objectivity is only constitutedthrougha radical exclu-
sion. Later on I came to realize that this assimilation presented two faws. The
frst, that antagonismis alreadyaformof discursiveinscriptioni.e. of mastery
of something more primary which, from New Refections on the Revolution of our
Time onwards, I started calling dislocation. (2004, 31819)
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that for the late Laclau, the notion of
antagonismis always a relationthat is constitutedthrougha dichotomization
of the social feld. However, this relation is no more than a discursive inscrip-
tion that answers (or attempts to answer) to an original lack of the social; a
dislocation in the current terminology of Laclau, which, because of the pres-
ence of the Other, impedes the full constitution of the own identity of the
parties of the relation. This also means that an antagonistic relation will
always be a contingent category, because it is constituted by the parties of the
relation (which at the same time are constituted onlyas a radical novelty
inthe relation). Furthermore, Laclauhas also recognized that anantagonistic
relation is not a necessary answer to a dislocation: Not all dislocation needs
to be constructed in an antagonistic way (2004, 319). In other words, for
Laclau the contingent character of an antagonistic relation implies that there
are several discursive inscriptions ina dislocationthat are not expressedinan
antagonistic way, this is to say, in a political way, like those belonging to a
moral, economic or technocratic discourse. Schmitt has also stressed this
theoretical caveat throughout his work (1996, 3132).
Nevertheless, the real point of advance in the theorization of the political
provided by Laclau is his effort to uncouple his late notion of antagonism
(dislocation) from the radical exclusion to which it was originally associated.
In fact, Laclau has retrospectively affrmed that The second faw [of his own
theory] is that antagonism is not equivalent to radical exclusion (2004, 319).
In an original move, he has now started thinking of the notion of antagonism
(as a response to dislocation) as an inclusive exclusion, in which both sides
of the antagonistic relation are necessary in order to create a single space of
representation (2004, 319). Inotherwords, thisisanexclusioninwhichtheterm
excludedis logically requiredfor the parties of anantagonistic relationto consti-
tutetheir identities, at least partiallyandtemporally. Inthis way, thenotionof the
political, understood in its two meanings of antagonismaforementioned, is also
revitalized and advanced fromthe stage in which Schmitt had left it.
Indeed, the newmeaning given by Laclau to the notion of antagonismas a
response to dislocation as an inclusive exclusion would allowresituating on
a more productive stage for a radical democracy Schmitts polemic fnal
assertion on the political that is understood as the most intense and extreme
antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes much more political
the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy
grouping (1996, 29). Indeed, Laclaus fnal theorization on the notion of
antagonismwould avoid any totalizing and reductionist character, such as is
often attributed to the friend-enemy grouping criterion. The reason for this is
twofold. First, in Laclaus work the social, understood as a response to the
dislocation can always be constituted in a non-antagonistic or political way
(though we should analyze the convenience of such an option). In other
words, the contingent character attributed by Laclau to the political would
guarantee that the concept of the political will not become a totalizing cate-
gory, at least conceptually speaking. Second, the antagonistic or political
answer to dislocation, even when it implies the possibility of the physical
death as Schmitt, merely recognizing a fact of reality, has always reminded us
(1996, 33), would not necessarily demand to build a radical external Other
(the Jews), but just an inclusively excluded (or agonistic) Other (the adver-
sary), in the aforementioned sense.
Thecategory of inclusiveexclusion is associatedtothelogics of equivalence
and difference in the dichotomization of the social feld that Laclau has ade-
quately deployed in his article Why Do Empty Signifers Matter to Politics?
(1996). Indeed, inthis work, Laclaudevelops thenotionof thelimits as acondition
of possibility and impossibility of a systemof signifcation. The limits of a system
must be something that is beyond such a system. In that sense, the limits are
somewhat an external Other. However, they cannot be a totally alien Other,
otherwise they could not inaugurate a systemof signifcation that will exist only
because such limits are ultimately set up. The solution found by Laclau is the
aforementionedDerrideanparadoxical expression: tobe aconditionof possibil-
ityandimpossibilityof asystemof signifcation, onthebasis of this newcategory
of inclusive exclusion. Laclau has summarized this paradoxical character of the
limits as follows: True limits are always antagonistic. But the operation of the
logic of exclusionary limits has a series of necessary effects which spread to both
side of the limits and which will lead us straight into the emergence of empty
signifers (1996, 37).
Chantal Mouffe, in turn, has also adopted the category of inclusive exclu-
sion theorizedby Laclau. Infact, Mouffe has programmatically developedthe
notion of agonistic politics to somewhat domesticate the notion of antag-
onism. In other words, she has aimed to transformthe category of enemy a` la
Schmitt into the new category of adversary, that comes to be the party that
actively participates in an agonistic kind of politics. She has been involved for
many years in this whole political-academic effort that aims to make liberal
and plural democracy compatible (Mouffe 1993; 2000b; 2005).
Therefore, the category of dislocation allows Laclau and Mouffe to advo-
cate for anantagonistic, not totalizing, notionof the political. This is, however,
always a task to be fulflled, not a given condition. Furthermore, the constitu-
tion of an antagonistic relation as a response to an original dislocation is
always a disputed alternative. Laclau has recognized this point asserting that:
This new step, however, is not the fnal one. For although with dislocation we
have moved from the total representation inherent in the antagonistic rela-
tion to a general crisis of representation, there are other types of exclusion
which do not involve such a crisis and which, however, cannot be assimilated
to the exclusive exclusion of antagonism either. (2004, 319)
In other words, the political inclusive exclusion has to compete and, in some
sense, probe that it would be the best alternative in front of other non-
antagonistic discursive inscriptions of the dislocation (like those moralistic or
technocratic ways of building the social). Furthermore, for Laclau, the political
way will alsobeultimatelyanimpossibletaskbecauseit aimstofll aconstitutive
lack that is by defnition unfulfllable. In other words, the impossible statute of
dislocation is what gives rise to a category that is always both a condition of
possibility and impossibility of a system of signifcation (1996, 37). There is
of courseaLacanianguisebeingdeployedherebyLaclautohighlight thecategory
of dislocation. Infact, dislocationis a category very close tothe Lacaniannotions
of the real/objet petite a/jouissance, as Laclau (2004, 299304) has recognized in
a debate held with Glynos and Stavrakakis (2004, 20116).
6
However, the
important point to bear in mind is that for Laclau (and Mouffe) this is some-
thing not to be ashamed of at all. Indeed, far from being problematic, the
undecidability condition of dislocation is precisely the guarantee that the
political will always be a very radical novel endeavor; an anti-totalizing prac-
tice by (an ontological) defnition. In this way, dislocation and the inclusive
exclusion of antagonism that it produces will come to save the antagonistic
character of the political. It will rescue the antagonism of the political from
the totalizing status in which it has been left by Schmitts theorization, and it
will defnitely introduce it into the feld of a radical democracy.
7
T H E D E B A T E L A C L A U - M O U F F E V E R S U S
I E K A N D T H E E X P A N S I O N O F T H E P O L I T I C A L
The revitalization of the notion of the political as a constitutive antagonism
ends consolidating with the debate on the political in which Laclau and
Mouffe have recently faced off with iek. The real point in question in that
debate has beenthe forminwhichthe political is carvedout, understoodas an
antagonistic relation. This debate has, thus, beenvery far frombeinginscribed
within those fashionable current theoretical endeavors that in fact tend to
displace, hide or negate the political as it has frequently been a feature of
contemporary political theory.
8
However, to characterize the debate held by Laclau-Mouffe and iek as a
productive interrogationof the formof the political, it is alsofar frombeing an
evident fact if one only stays with the hard terms of the polemic in which they
have been involved. Indeed, Laclau (2006) has answered Slavoj ieks
(2006a) critique of his book On Populist Reason in an article entitled Why
Constructing a People Is the MainTask of Radical Politics? There, Laclau has
called iek ultra-leftist (2006, 678). After analyzing several of ieks cri-
tiques of Laclaus book On the Populist Reason, Laclau responded, A true
political intervention is never merely oppositional; it is rather one that dis-
places the terms of the debate, that rearticulates the situation in a new
confguration. . . . This is what makes the ultra-leftist appeal to total exterior-
ity synonymous with the eradication of the political as such (2006, 678). In
that refection, Laclau is explicitly rejecting the theory of the act that iek
has developed in his late work.
9
For Laclau, in ieks theorization on the
political, it appears that only a violent, head-on confrontation with the en-
emy as it is conceived as legitimate action (2006, 679). Inother words, Laclau
reacts against ieks thesis that only a position of total exteriority vis a` vis
the present situation can guarantee revolutionary purity (2006, 679). For
Laclau, this is a position that must be rejected, because there is only one step
from here to make exteriority qua exteriority the supreme political value and
to advocate violence for violences sake (2006, 679).
However, Laclau does not appear to be suffciently aware that ieks
effort aims not tothinkaradical external act, understoodas anact beyondany
ontological register. On the contrary, what iek theorizes is an act that has
habitually been thought of by affrming a radical opposition between an ontic
and ontological feld, or between Being and Event, as it has been proposed by
Alain Badiou (2005, 17879)a position that iek has rejected for being too
idealist (iek and Daly 2004, 13637). Furthermore, iek will insist on visu-
alizing a proper political act as a tension or doubling that takes place within
the same ontological register (iek and Daly 2004, 137).
10
Indeed, iek has
recalledLacans insights toillustrate what he has inmindinrelationtothe act.
The act, iek will argue, is close to the notion of what Lacan refers to as la
doublure, doubling, twist or curving in the order of being that opens space to
the event (2004, 137). What iek seems to have in mind here is not an act
symbolically determined, but one that comes about precisely fromthe tension
in such an order of Being. Furthermore, the act is such a tension (iek 2002,
272, 2006b, 56).
11
This is why for iek the political act can only be conceived
within an inconsistent and materialist ontology (2006b, 79). In other words,
an ontology that assumes the radical inconsistency of the All as a part of its
own materiality. This is also the reason why iek, in relation to this theori-
zation of the act, has adopted the Lacanian motto The big Other does not
exist (Johnston 2007b).
This very original way of thinking of the political points out to reach two
main goals apparently contradictory at frst sight. Firstly, iek asserts an
event as a radical novelty or discontinuous symbolic irruption. Secondly, he
keeps such an event within an immanentist register. This is to say, iek
attempts to theorize animmanency that is however compatible witha radical
novelty unmoored from any theological trace. In other words, the act theo-
rized by iek has excluded all together any transcendental hint and, consid-
ered in that way, it becomes a proper materialist event.
Now, the important point to bear in mind here is that such a way of
theorizing the political is completely in line with the aforementioned Laclau-
sian thesis on the constitutive character of the notion of a primordial antag-
onism, which Laclau has named dislocation. In both cases, the character of
the subjacent ontology of the notion of the political proposed by Laclau and
iek is described as a radical inconsistency, which would make it impossible
toachieve adefnitive suture of society. For Laclauthe materialist character of
suchontology defendedby iek, understoodas anexclusionof any transcen-
dental feld, is alsosomething very agreeable. Nevertheless, neither Laclaunor
iek denies the quasi-transcendental, undecidable character assigned to the
event. Furthermore, the quasi-transcendentalism of the event is due directly
to the character of radical novelty, or radical openness, that an event, as a
miracle of the political, will always produce, something on which prima facie
Laclau and iek would agree. Moreover, the real point of discussion for both
authors is whether such undecidability of the event is something that can be
(politically) articulated? And if it can be, in what way would such an articula-
tion come about?
ieks analysis inthis matter is as follows. Hestarts byaskingif theAll were
a not-All, what the distinctive signof irreducible contingency wouldbe, fnally?
For iek, the answer lies precisely in the (material) event that, although it is
inscribedwithintheorder of being, operatesasashort-circuit against theclaimof
consistency or wholeness of the All. An event, however, is such precisely be-
causetheAll isnot-All, thisistosay, it isexplainedbyitsoriginal inconsistency.
The event does not produce this inconsistency. On the contrary, the event is
becausethereissuchinconsistency. Furthermore, theevent is pureinconsistency.
It is worth noticing that ieks thesis on the act is again very much in line
withthe distinctionformulatedby the late Laclaubetweendislocationandan
antagonistic relation. Indeed, Laclaus notion of dislocation is ultimately the
guarantee that allows himto avoid the temptation of adopting a notion of the
political that threatens to postulate a defnitive closure of society.
iek, in turn, has insisted on the idea that a proper political act is always
featured by a condition of impossibility. In other words, the political act is
somewhat an impossible assault to the wholeness of society, reading from the
symbolical-historical conditionsfromwhichtheact emerges. Furthermore, iek
has affrmed that a proper political act does not simply take place within the
horizonthat appears tobe possible . . . it retrospectively builds the conditions of
its own possibility (2000, 121). This is the reason why such conditions of impos-
sibility are just resolved a posteriori, whenthe act takes place; it is thenwhenthe
act retrospectively inaugurates its own conditions of occurrence.
Therefore, it couldbe plausible andproductive toassume bothieks theory
of the act and Laclaus theorization of the notion of dislocation, as well as on the
constitutionof anantagonistic relation(or agonistic politics as Mouffe has called
it), as two complementary lines of refection on the same process of constitution
of the political. Considered in this way, the political, understood as antagonism,
wouldnot onlytakeplacethroughtheslowhistorical processof constitutionof an
antagonisticrelationlikeinawar of positions a` laGramsci. This latter casewould
be the paradigmatic situation, as Laclau and Mouffe have shown it, in which a
particular assumes the universal representation of the other components of a
chain of equivalencies. A process in which, if it is successful, a new horizon of
senses, called hegemony, would be ultimately set up. However, the political, fol-
lowing ieks theorization of the act, would also and always be constituted by a
series of combined movements of impossible assaults a` la Lenin(The Act) that
would transform the order of the possible and open a new terrain to the emer-
gence of a newcommon sense; a newobjectivity. ieks notion of the act would
thus permanently appeal to Laclaus notion of dislocation, the constitutive lack
that is at the bottomof abottomless notionthe political. Inthis way, the iekian
act, far frombeing beyond the political, would rather aid in the avoidance of the
forgetting of the real character of the political. Therefore, it is in this productive
combination between articulation and assault where an extended notion of an-
tagonism would be rescued as a central axis of an enlarged and revitalized con-
cept of the political.
Finally, it is alsoworthnoticingthat this updatednotionof thepolitical would
mean a revitalization of the project of a radical democracy, not only as one
defendedby Laclau-Mouffe and, insome sense, by iek, but also for more delib-
erative theoretical approaches as well, as those proposed by a whole Arendt-
Habermasian tradition in political theory. In fact, a notion of the constitutive
antagonism as one presented in this paper, far from opposing any deliberative
logic, would demand a particular kind of associability for its complete deploy-
ment. Indeed, the categories of dislocation and the antagonistic relation, from
whichit comes about, aretwomoments of thesameprocess of theconstitutionof
society. The deliberationis, thus, present inthat process, because it is acondition
for a constitution of an antagonistic relation, in Laclaus terms, that a particular
demand becomes contaminated through a combined logic of equivalence and
difference. Now, it is evident for Laclau-Mouffes theorization that the process of
contamination experiencedby a series of particular demands is not exclusively
deliberative, understood as a process of free communication of reasons a` la
Habermas (1982; 1996; 1999; 2001; 2003). Moreover, the process of articulation
described by Laclau is full of non-rational components, such as affects and
unconscious mechanisms (Laclau 2004, 307).
12
However, the point to bear in
mind here is that deliberation must not be assumed as opposite to the notion
of antagonism. Indeed, it is very plausible to fnd both antagonism and delib-
eration being part of the same process of constitution of an antagonistic
relation or the political.
For the case of Laclaus theorization, the deliberative moment is also a
common feature for the formation of a chain of equivalences. In that senses,
the chain of equivalences and differences will come to be a condensation
process of antagonistic and deliberative actions, both of them rational and
irrational in character. For iek, in turn, the deliberative moment of the
political (although not necessarily exclusive of a radical democratic politics)
is present as long as the act must be militantly (consciously and uncon-
sciously) carved out and kept alive in its radicalismonce it is declared as such
by militants.
Therefore, as it has been argued elsewhere (Camargo 2011a), it could be
more productive for a more accurate programmatic understanding of radical
democracy to assume both the associative and the dissociative moments of
the antagonistic relation as two articulated dimensions of the same open
phenomenon of the political. This will demand, however, an extension of the
notionof deliberation. Deliberationshould not be reduced to a mere rational-
istic (communicative) practice. It should rather include a wider set of not-
rationalistic actions, quite often present in the associability dimension of the
political but ignored by so-called deliberative political theorists. However,
this matter will be made the ground of further investigation.
N O T E S
Research funding for this article was provided by Fondecyt de Iniciacion Nro. 11100170.
1. Torfng defnes undecidability as the name for the irresolvable dilemmas which occur
under wholly determinate circumstances . . . undecidability refers not only to the funda-
mental aporias within a discourse but also to the call for a constitutive decision that
articulates social meaning in one way rather than another (1999, 307).
2. SeealsoVollrath(1995, 48), Connolly (1991; 1993; 1995), Honing (2001), andTully (1989; 1995).
3. See also Mouffe (1993).
4. Chantal Mouffe has habitually recognized her debts to Schmitt. Laclau, on the contrary,
has only said informally that Schmitts works have not been part of his favorite readings.
However, (ina private conversationwiththe author, Santiago-Chile 2011), he has affrmed
that he would encourage research that attempted to link his thought to the notion of the
political developed by Schmitt.
5. See in this respect Schwab (1989), Strauss (1996), Benjamin (1998), Weber (1992), Kennedy
(1987), Marcuse (1968, 3031), Habermas (1987; 1992; 1994), Wolin (1992), and the whole
liberal tradition represented by Holmes (1993), Bellamy and Baehr (1993), and Sartori
(1989). Finally see Derridas critique toSchmitts notionof the political (1997, 106, chapters
4, 5, and passim). See also Meier (1995; 2003).
6. SeealsoGlynos (2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2003) andStavrakakis (1999; 2000a; 2000b; 2002; 2004;
2007).
7. For Laclau this danger for a fully representation of society and history is also clearly
present in Hegels Philosophy of History and Marxs ambition of drawing a total history
unifed by the development of the productive forces . . . (2004, 319).
8. For a review of those debates, see Camargo (2009).
9. For a deep analysis of ieks theory of the act, see Camargo (2011a).
10. For a whole evolution of ieks theorization on the political act, see Camargo (2010, 2011a,
2011b).
11. See also Johnston (2007a, 53).
12. Laclau has clarifed his non-Cartesian rationalistic position as follows: Given this cen-
trality attributed to affect and rhetoric, it should be clear that my approach is incompat-
ible with any kind of privileging of inferential logic, with any notion of the decision as
exclusively grounded in rational calculation, or with a crypto-Cartesian, essentialist,
notionof the subject. He immediately adds: What I have assertedis exactly the opposite:
that the decision is not grounded in any rationality external to itself; that itself, however,
should not be conceived in terms of any self transparency, but as a complex situation
whose mechanismlargely unconsciousescape the subject of the decision; and that
this subject does not precede the decision but is rather the product of the latter (Laclau
2004, 307).
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