Oxford Bibliographies: Ernesto Laclau

Laclau: A Critical Reader, 2004

We've plugged our 'lacanometer' inco Emesto Laclau's theoretical corpus. Eyes raised in expectation, we wait to see where on its scale the pointer will come to rest. Just how far is Laclau willing to go in appropriating Lacanian categories in the service of his hegemonic approach to discourse analysis? Or, to put it in Freudian terms, what measure of truth shall we attribute to the tapsus haunting a recent publication: a textual condensation of the two authors' names ('Laclan')?l Framing our essay in this way, the question clearly takes for granted a certain reading ofLaclau's theoretical trajectory, namely, his increasing readiness to take on board many crucial Lacanian insights. Theoretical affinities with Lacanian thought are evident from at least the time of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, if not earlier. Since then, such affinities have been subject to further exploitation (mainly in NR and E). There is often a straightforward terminological cross~over. Think, for example, of terms like suture, identity, identification, and the subject· as-lack. But there is also an apparently close conceptual affinity, even when the names of terms are not shared. Think, for example, of the nodal point, the empty signifier, the radically excluded, the impossibility of society, or the notion of an outside that is constitutive of the inside (roughly corresponding to the Lacanian concepts of the point·de·capiton, the master signifier, the objet perit a, the impossibility of the sexual relation, and extimacy). Indeed, conceptual affinities such as these make up a fairly extensive reservoir, from which Laclau does not hesitate to draw in elaborating further his discourse theoretic approach to political analysis.

Those with a taste for etymology can already make out the main lines of Ernesto Laclau's theory of hegemony in the Greek roots of hegemony, antagonism, and agent. 1 The first derives from hegeisthai, to lead, while the second and third each derive from agon, struggle, gathering, contest, itself from agein, to lead. To be an agent, then, is to be successful in the agon and thereby assume a position of leadership. By way of contrast, to be a subject with an identity, as the Latin roots subicere and idem suggest, is to be brought under and equated with such authority. Political activity in particular entails a series of identifications in the course of which we shift back and forth interminably between passive subjection and creative agency, and in which this creative activity is never entirely free of this passivity. The politics of identity is a politics of movements rather than states, and, pace Kant, autonomous movement is only possible in the context of heteronomy. The specific form all of this takes in Laclau's work is largely a result of his marriage of poststructuralism and Marxism. This is a union most often attempted by those working within the former camp, one effect of which is that the political philosophy that results tends to be more philosophical than political. As Laclau's work in contrast represents a turn to poststructuralist theory from within Marxism, it promises to speak more directly to political activity than to textual exegesis. Laclau turns to poststructuralism in search of a model of identity that will allow him to apply Gramsci's theory of the hegemonic "war of position" in a political universe in which identity politics has for many replaced class struggle. The concept of antagonism is the lynchpin here and the central concept in Laclau's political theory of hegemony: "The moment of antagonism where the undecidable nature of the alternatives and their resolution through power relations becomes fully visible constitutes the field of the 'political.'" "Antagonism has a revelatory function, in that it shows the ultimately contingent nature of all identity," thereby enacting the ontological critique of the subject associated with poststructuralism. 2 An evaluation of Laclau's concept of antagonism will therefore afford us a gauge of both his work's theoretical cogency and its practical implications.

Athens Journal of Social Sciences, 2020

With the rise of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, the name of Ernesto Laclau was highlighted as an influence on the ideological line of these movements. This paper aims to analyze this post-Marxist author's thought, with a special focus on how his political theory reconciles pluralism and radicalism.Central to Laclau's project seems to be a sharp rejection of what we could call "essentialism," that is, the belief that social subjects, their interests, and their struggles are predetermined. In his work with Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), this rejection takes the form of a radical break with orthodox Marxism: The Left, they argue, should abandon Marxism's essentialism and attempts to abolish democracy through a revolution. The Left, they contend, should accept pluralism in order to articulate a hegemonic bloc against Neoliberalism and foster the struggle for equality. In a second part, this paper will attempt to describe Laclau's position on populism. In On Populist Reason (2005), Laclau argued that populism emerged from the articulation of a number of demands that are not met by the political establishment. These demands, in their efforts of articulation, would then use a "populist" rhetoric, vague in nature: they would proclaim themselves as "the legitimate people," unite against an "enemy" ("the oligarchy," for instance), and attempt to retrieve a perceived "lost harmony" of society. In a third part, this paper will argue that, by replacing the "bourgeoisie" of the Marxist narrative by "essentialism," Laclau is able to create a skillful political theory combining radicalism, pluralism, and pragmatism. On the other hand, it will also be argued that Laclau's political thought seems to come in tension with pluralism: Laclau's sharp rejection of essentialism leads him to posit a political thought where no compromise is possible with any form of essentialism.

Journal of Political Ideologies, 2020

This article provides an internal assessment of Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism. While critiques of Laclau have been made from a variety of traditions, few scholars have sought to work through the contradictions of his thought on internal terms. This article identifies some key antinomies in Laclau's oeuvre and hints at some redemptive strategies. It starts with a short summary of Laclau's conception of populism in contextual and conceptual fashion. Subsequently, four possible deficits of Laclau's theory are examined, ranging from a tension between verticality and horizontality, an ahistorical dimension, a descriptive and normative hyperformalism, and the lack of a reflexive approach to the term 'populism' itself. The article finishes with a fresh research agenda for 'post-Laclauian' theories of populism.

Ernesto Laclau practices the art of rhetoric in a systemic connection with his political philosophy and his interest in translation. In general, others do so as well. But do all fall for the game? The era of instant communication (with the political dimension flattened) does not lend itself to this distinction too much. This discipline is interested in the ways how the politicians’ speeches unveil technologies of the construction of the political scene. This means that the rhetoric itself takes part in the political. Ernesto Laclau is attentive to the way how elites, political professionals, establish their own ideologies and interests as general rules by making them appear as absolute and neutral standards, valid for all, much as the judgments of reason, and through transforming them into beliefs: that is hegemony.

Neste trabalho analisamos a proposta de construção social da realidade a partir da Teoria do Discurso, na perspectiva de Ernesto Laclau. Um discurso, em sua perspectiva, ocorre pela articulação de demandas particulares hegemonizadas por uma das identidades que configuram o sentido da realidade. Esse fechamento de sentido é sempre inacabável e, portanto é contingente e temporário. Suas concepções são antiessencialistas e, numa linha pós-estruturalista, presume um sujeito descentrado e plural. Abstract In this papper we analyzed the social phenomena through of the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau. A discourse is an articulation of the demands that are monopolized by an identity. The social meaning is given by this process. The sense never finished. It changes according to context. The discourse theory is post-structuralist, then: the identities don't have an essence, and the modern individual is plural.

Ernesto Laclau's post-Marxist discourse theory is increasingly utilised within media studies in order to investigate discourses circulating about, within, and through media. Discourse theory has proved itself to be a productive theoretical asset that can yield important empirical insights into the solidification and neutralisation of particular discursive regimes. Yet, the critical potentials of Laclau's theoretical work have often been downplayed or neglected. Instead of offering a fully formed critical theory, Laclau has been relegated to offering a descriptive toolbox in which the underlying critical implications have been either overlooked or forgotten altogether. This paper seeks to reflect on the potentials and obstacles within Laclau's work for critical media studies by engaging with the role of Marxism, capitalism and critique. First, the paper addresses the relation between Marxism and post-Marxism by arguing that rather than abandoning Marxism, Laclau actively situates his own work as a dialogue with and against this tradition. Second, the paper addresses the relation between Laclau's analysis of so-called globalised capitalism and political struggle, which leads to a discussion of class relations and political economy. Third, the paper examines Laclau's notion of ideology critique and argues that it must be seen as a simultaneously explanatory, normative and practical perspective. Based on these discussions, it is this paper's contention that it is insufficient to simply appropriate discourse theory as a descriptive research format, but that it must rather be seen as underlined by a radical critique of existing structures of domination and capitalist subordination. The paper furthermore argues that there are parts of Laclau's work that are problematic for this purpose and needs to receive further attention by future research. By providing an extended discussion of Laclau's own work, this paper seeks to contribute to the critical application of discourse theory within the field of media studies and contribute to the ongoing dialogue between Marxism, post-Marxism, and critical media studies.

Ernesto Laclau's theory of antagonism and political identity has been widely celebrated as one of the most promising attempts to apply the lessons of 'poststructuralism' to political theory. This essay argues, however, that this initial promise is not fulfilled. Laclau's attempt to define and analyse 'the political' as such operates at such an abstract level that Laclau is forced to make sweeping claims about the nature of politics and identity that he simply cannot support; and his analysis of the decision that he claims defines politics is an unrealistic one that celebrates violence, and could have the wide appeal it has had only in a political culture that understood freedom as the absence of all constraint, rather than the achievement of autonomy.