Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/224768 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Contemporary Political Theory [ISSN:] 1476-9336 [Volume:] 19 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Palgrave Macmillan [Place:] Basingstoke [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 211-232
Publisher: 
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Abstract: 
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’).
Subjects: 
Ernesto Laclau
Chantal Mouffe
party politics
populism
radical democracy
social movements
Published Version’s DOI: 
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Accepted Manuscript (Postprint)

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