Abstract
The contemporary agonist thinker, Chantal Mouffe argues that conflicts are constitutive of politics. However, this position raises the question that concerns the survival of order and the proper types of conflicts in democracies. Although Mouffe is not consensus-oriented, consensus plays a role in her theory when the democratic order is at stake. This suggests that there is a theoretical terrain between the opposing poles of conflict and consensus. This can be discussed with the help of concepts and theories that seem to be standing between the two, namely compromise, debate and the borders of democracy. I will argue that we can reveal this position with the theoretical analysis of compromise in the works of F. R. Ankersmit on the historical origin of representative democracy, and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson on the role of compromise in divided communities. J. S. Mill’s view of colliding opinions offers a moderate agonistic understanding of politics, while the concept of debate plays a similar role for Márton Szabó, a contemporary Hungarian political theorist. Finally, Mouffe’s position stands at the conflictual end of this spectrum, although conflicts are delimited on the normative ground of democracy.
References
Ankersmit, F. R. (2002). Political Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9781503619036Search in Google Scholar
Aristotle (2007). On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Second edition. Translated by George A. Kennedy. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Beckstein, Martin (2011). “The dissociative and polemical political: Chantal Mouffe and the intellectual heritage of Carl Schmitt.” In: Journal of Political Ideologies 16. No. 1, p. 33–51.10.1080/13569317.2011.540941Search in Google Scholar
Galston, William A. (2010). “Realism in political theory.” In: European Journal of Political Theory 9, No. 4, p. 385–411.10.1177/1474885110374001Search in Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis (1996). Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge – London, Belknap Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis (2010). “The mindsets of political compromise.” In: Perspectives on Politics 8. No. 4, p. 1125–1143.10.1017/S1537592710003270Search in Google Scholar
Heller, Ágnes (1993). “A politikai fogalmának újragondolása.” In: Politikatudományi Szemle 2, p. 5–17. First published: Ágnes Heller (1990): “The concept of the political revisited.” In: Ágnes Heller: Can Modernity Survive? Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 113–127.Search in Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie (2007). “Between decision and deliberation: Political paradox in democratic theory.” In: American Political Science Review 101. No. 1, p. 1–17.10.1017/S0003055407070098Search in Google Scholar
Kerferd, G. B. (1981). The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Knops, Andrew (2007). “Debate: Agonism as deliberation – On Mouffe's theory of democracy.” In: The Journal of Political Philosophy 15. No. 1, p. 115–126.10.1111/j.1467-9760.2007.00267.xSearch in Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart (2003). On Liberty. Edited by David Bromwich and George Kateb. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (1993). The Return of the Political. London, New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (1995). “Politics, democratic action, and solidarity”. In: Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 38. No. 1–2, p. 99–108.10.1080/00201749508602377Search in Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (2000). The Paradox of Democracy. London, New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (2005). On the Political. New York, London: Routledge. Search in Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (2008). “Democratic politics and the dynamics of passions.” In: Kari Palonen, Tuija Pulkkinen, José María Rosales (Eds.): The Ashgate Research Companion to the Politics of Democratization in Europe. Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, p. 89–100.Search in Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (2013). Agonistics: Thinking the world politically. London, New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Norval, Aletta J. (2000). “Trajectories of future research in discourse theory.” In: David Howarth, Aletta J. Norval, Yannis Stavrakakis (Eds.): Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 219–236.Search in Google Scholar
Palonen, Kari (2008). “Speaking pro et contra: The rhetorical intelligibility of parliamentary politics and the political intelligibility of parliamentary rhetoric.” In: Suvi Soininen, Tapani Turka (Eds.): The Parliamentary Style of Politics. Helsinki: The Finnish Political Science Association, p. 82–105.Search in Google Scholar
Sprague, Rosamond Kent (Ed.) (2001). The Older Sophists. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hacket Publising.Search in Google Scholar
Szabó, Márton (1998). Diszkurzív térben. Tanulmányok a politika nyelvéről és a politikai tudásról. (Politics in the realm of discourse: Studies on political language and epistemology.) Budapest: Scientia Humana.Search in Google Scholar
Szabó, Márton (2014). Kötőjelek. Írások tudományról, politikáról, közéletről. (Hyphens: On political science, politics, and public life.) Budapest: L’Harmattan, p. 27–38.Search in Google Scholar
Szabó, Márton (2003). A diszkurzív politikatudomány alapjai. Elméletek és elemzések. (The foundations of a discursive political science: Theories and analyses.) Budapest: L’Harmattan, p. 202–214.Search in Google Scholar
Torfing, Jacob (1999). New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Turner, Brandon P. (2010). “John Stuart Mill and the antagonistic foundation of liberal politics.” In: The Review of Politics 72, p. 25–53.10.1017/S0034670509990957Search in Google Scholar
Urbinati, Nadia (1998). “Democracy and populism.” In: Constellations 5. No. 1, p. 110–124.10.1111/1467-8675.00080Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Das Politische als Entpolitisierung der Politik
- Entscheidung für das, was ohnehin ist
- Die Destruktion der Gesellschaftstheorie: Ernesto Laclaus und Chantal Mouffes Versuch einer nicht-essentialistischen Politischen Philosophie
- Ohne Form kein Inhalt
- Between conflict and consensus: Why democracy needs conflicts and why communities should delimit their intensity
- Politischer Marxismus contra Postmarxismus
- Die „letzte Sinnlosigkeit“
- Politics contra the functionalisation of man – Hannah Arendt’s problematic investigation of ideology and labour
- Beitrag außerhalb des Schwerpunkts
- Der Sinn des Lebens...
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Das Politische als Entpolitisierung der Politik
- Entscheidung für das, was ohnehin ist
- Die Destruktion der Gesellschaftstheorie: Ernesto Laclaus und Chantal Mouffes Versuch einer nicht-essentialistischen Politischen Philosophie
- Ohne Form kein Inhalt
- Between conflict and consensus: Why democracy needs conflicts and why communities should delimit their intensity
- Politischer Marxismus contra Postmarxismus
- Die „letzte Sinnlosigkeit“
- Politics contra the functionalisation of man – Hannah Arendt’s problematic investigation of ideology and labour
- Beitrag außerhalb des Schwerpunkts
- Der Sinn des Lebens...