<Issue 14 - April 2007>
Hegemony and Socialism: An Interview with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau
In the early to middle
eighties, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau co-authored a book called, Hegemony
and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics [London and New
York: Verso, 1985], which has been translated into many languages and become influential in the theory of new social movements
and their influence on contemporary societies.
Chantal, what were
your formative political experiences, and how did you first come to start to think about social and political theory?
Mouffe: Well, my formative
political experiences were as a student in the 1960's, and it was very much the time of the imperialist struggle. I studied
both in the University of Fluvain and in Paris; it was the time of the Algerian War in Paris. It was the time of the Cuban
Revolution; it was the time of imperialist struggle. That's what really was important for me and I was very involved in that.
And in fact, that's the reason why, at the end of the sixties, I went to Colombia, in Latin America, because all my generation,
we went away to the so-called Third World - some people went to Algeria, some people took Africa, and I went to Latin America.
Intellectually, I should say, that the main influence at that time was that I was a student of Althusser. And that, obviously,
there was a very important link between my political commitment and my intellectual interest at that moment.
Was feminism important
for you at that time? I know that later, you've written quite widely on feminist theory.
Mouffe: Well, feminism
did not exist, really, at that time, because feminism, as you know, was something that was a consequence of the student movement
at the end of the sixties. But, in the beginning of the sixties, in fact, there was no feminist movement. Obviously, I know
that there was a very important feminist movement at the beginning of the century. But I became a feminist later. I first
went through socialism, Marxism, and at the beginning of the seventies, that's when I began to know about feminism because
that's the moment when feminism began to be organized, really.
Ernesto, what were
your first political experiences?
Laclau: Well, my first
political experiences were in Argentina. In fact, I only went to Europe in 1969. So, my first approach to Marxism, to socialism,
took place both in the student movements and in the political struggles of the 1960's in Argentina. At that moment, these
were the years immediately after the Cuban Revolution, when there was a radicalization of the student movement all over Latin
America, and I was very active in it. I was a student representative to the Central Council of the University of Buenos Aires,
president of the Center of the Student Union of Philosophy. And later on, I joined various left-wing movements in Argentina.
Especially, I was part of the leadership of the Socialist Party of the National Left which was very active in Argentina in
the 1960's. In terms of intellectual influences, I must say that I was never a dogmatic Marxist. I always tried to, even in
those early days, to mix Marxism with something else. And a major influence at some point became Gramsci and Althusser, who,
each of them in a different way, tried to recast Marxism in terms which approached more, the central issues of contemporary
politics.
One of the themes of
your early work that's been quite influential, perhaps, primarily in Latin America, but also more widely, is your analysis
of populism. How does that entail a revision of Marxist theory of the time?
Laclau: Well, let me say in the first place, that my interest in populism arose
out of the experience of the Peronist movement in Argentina. The 1960's have been a period in Argentina of rapid radicalization
and disintegration of the state apparatuses controlled by an oligarchy which had run the country since 1955. Now, it was perfectly
clear, in that context, that when more and more popular demands coalesce around certain political poles, that this process
of mass mobilization and mass ideological formation could not be conceived simply in class terms. So, the question of what
we call the popular democratic, or national popular interpolation, became central in my preoccupation. Now, in terms of what
you were asking me, about in what way this put into question some of the categories of Marxism, I would say that it did so
in the sense that popular identities were never conceived as being organized around a class core, but on the contrary, were
widely open. They could move in different ideological directions, and they could give a place to movements whose ideological
characteristics were not determined from the beginning. So, it put into question in that sense, some of the tenets of classical
Marxism.
Irina Boca
The Double-Structured Antithesis of Reality
In less than a century,
B. Constant’s impulse sauvage and calcul
civilize, which denominated the succession of two diametrically opposed historical
periods (war and peaceful exchange), came to denominate two simultaneous orders opposing one other, two adverse perspectives
waging a permanent war against each other. C. Schmitt found the Marxist antithesis between the proletariat and the bourgeois
the most prominent and most effective historically because it concentrated all the energy on the final battle between two
irreconcilable orders. By contrast, G. Dumezil found the antithesis between the god of night (Varuna) and the god of day (Mitra)
expressive of the collaborative nature between natural and supernatural orders; he turned their historical succession into
their simultaneous coexistence, into the sovereign couple that binds and exchanges, wills and knows, acts and decides, and,
most importantly, forms a perfect double with the Roman couple (Romulus and Numa), with the “terrible and the Ordered,
the Violent and the Correct, the Magician and the Jurist…”. [3]
Succession and simultaneity no longer separate into two diametrically opposed orders, for each has
become the mirror image of the other, functioning as a double articulation of conflict and collaboration, war and peace, bonds
and exchanges. Two successive orders (i.e., Rome under Romulus and Numa) are simultaneous with the presence of the divine
couple (Jupiter Stator and Fides), they “borrow” the collaborative quality of the divine couple, becoming the
sovereign (simultaneous) heads of the human order. They become the “twins” living on the same set of organs (same
order) for an indefinite period of time. [4] The Hegelian antithesis between master and slave passes through the successive
stages of the family, of civil society and the state, bringing them together in the final synthesis. The successive orders
fold back upon one another (Foucault’s accordion structure) becoming one indivisible order in which the master-slave
antithesis is simultaneously dissolved and (re)composed in ever new configurations (family versus civil society; civil society
versus the state, etc.).
J. Habermas
traces the tensions between these simultaneous, yet successive, materializations of the master-slave antithesis inside the
bourgeois family, civil society and the state, emphasizing that all successive transformations of the public sphere were possible
by dint of its absorption into the two antithetical orders - the bourgeois family and the state. In the triple structure (family-society-state)
the middle term is always absorbed by the other two, forming a new couple, [5] a new reality (or order). The ever changing
antithetical couples, backed by the triple structure of their successive transformations, lead to the isolation and absorption
of the third element of the structure - it is a closed system in which each element goes from isolation (oneness) to coupling,
to tripling, and back, without ever changing its place, but only its function. This is the structural response to the ontological
question of being, the middle term between philosophy and science, which is (as all such terms are) both successiveness and
simultaneous coexistence of two opposing theses - the middle term is as much a hybrid of the two alternatives as it is the
“novelty” directing the process of their simultaneous homogenization. [6]
Jean
Cohen A Review of Agnes Heller, Beyond Justice
The contemporary debate in political philosophy
between neo-communitarians and rights-oriented liberals revolves around the question of whether it is possible to articulate
a formal, universalistic (deontological) concept of justice without presupposing a substantive (historically and culturally
specific) concept of the good. Seen from the perspective of the neo-communitarians, rights, be they “human”, civil
or political, articulate no more than the particular discourses and traditions of western civilization; they can be defended
or challenged only with respect to our way of life. For the political liberal, however, rights constitute the heart of a conception
of justice that makes the claims to legitimacy of any contemporary polity plausible. As such, rights constitute universal
moral demands, upon all states to enact laws and enforce policies that are tolerant of diversity and neutral with respect
to any particular conception of the good. While the first approach seems to be at a loss when it comes to articulating a principle
that can serve to ground the choice of those aspects of “our tradition” that one selects as worthy of preserving;
the second is perpetually embarrassed when it comes to defending its universalistic claims on grounds other than dogmatic
appeals to natural rights. In short, the contenders in the debate seem to have reached a stand-off.
That is why Beyond Justice could not
have appeared at a more opportune moment. By providing an extremely rich, learned and comprehensive analysis of the concept
of justice and its various shapes over time, the book offers an invaluable historical perspective sorely missing in the current
debate. It also gives us, if not the solution, at least a clarification of the philosophical issues at stake, thereby opening
a conceptual way out.
For us, the most relevant and original discussion
occurs in chapter 5 of Beyond Justice, entitled, “Towards an Incomplete Ethico-Political Concept of Justice”.
For it is here that Heller throws down the gauntlet to neo-communitarians, by insisting that a comprehensive, ethical-political
concept of justice is neither possible nor desireable today. The latter, of course, refers to a concept of justice that fuses
moral and legal norms, “righteousness” or goodness and political justice. It rests on the assumption that morality
can be defined by the observance of socio-political norms, while the notion of a just polity can be based upon the foundation
of a pre-existing moral order. In short, a complete ethico-political concept of justice is a concept of collective morality
or Sittlichkeit. The norms and rules of the (ideal) city are thought of as the precondition for the education (paidea)
of the virtuous (just) man and as the end result of virtuous activity itself [1].
Miscellaneous
Highlights
The Euston Manifesto (launched on April
13th, 2006) has caused a stir in the blogosphere. Academics, citizens, journalists, scientists and writers have
signed it. You can read the document and, if you support its aims and principles, become a signatory to the manifesto:
The Euston Manifesto
Michael Harrington's pamphlet Why We Need Socialism in America, first published by Dissent, has been
posted to the website of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America. You can view it here: Socialism in America
The Zapatista
Army of National Liberation (Mexico) launched its Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona on June of 2005. We
have highlighted it here: Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona
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