The return of the political Book

This is a very interesting series of essays that does a number of things. In this review, I want to focus on four areas of model building where Mouffe has advanced the literature and provided conceptualizations useful for Democratic practice in late 20th century and early 21 century Western nations.

Below I describe the contributions in this work towards: 1) Articulating a non-essentialist version of subjectivity; 2) Laying out and circumscribing the horizon of the political; 3) Articulating a radical theory of democratization; and 4) Inscribing the essential boundaries of the political.

1. Articulating a non-essentialist version of subjectivity. This is contra the old essentialist version of Marxist class consciousness. In the old essentialist version of Marxist class consciousness, the revolutionary praxis hinged on and was realized through the proletarian standpoint. There had to be proletarians for there to be a revolutionary praxis; the former was causa sui, and the praxis was predicated upon it. By contrast, in the post- post-structuralist version of subjectivity, the subject positions'e.g. LGBT, women, workers, African-Americans, Latinx, the disabled, seniors, and so on'are themselves both non-essentialist and contingent. The non-essentialism recognizes that, for instance, what you mean by "feminist" or "people with disabilities" may well be different than what I mean by those terms and positions of subjectivity, which in turn may well be different than a third person. At the same time, by virtue of their contingency, these terms and positions of subjectivity are realized by and through their articulation and their various beings and practices in the world. In other words, their articulations and their beings and practices in the world change the positions of subjectivity, and are in turn changed by them. For example, LGBT became LGBTQ, which became LBTQQIIAP. In the process, and as a result of the movement, more people recognized themselves as having fluid genders, and the movement itself expanded and obtained legalized status for gay marriage in many western nations. Mouffe speaks about a chain of equivalences and a chain of difference by and through which these various positions of subjectivity realize a common radical democratic platform. This is much easier said than done. In plain English, this would mean a coalition of women, African-Americans, Latinx, disabled Americans, seniors, and so on lead a successful electoral platform at local, state, congressional, and presidential levels. In practice and in the intervening three decades, this last point had proved to be the weakest point, and has only been achieved when it coalesced under the us-versus-them logic, described below in point four.

2. Laying out and circumscribing the horizon of the political. This layer of the work described and depicted the inherent tension between liberalism and democratic politics. The liberal theory is predicated upon the primacy of the individual realizing his or her interest in society. This has been realized through liberal pluralism and the marketplace of various pluralist interests pursued. Inherent in this pluralism is that there is no one common good, as there is no one good as the eudaemonia within liberal society. Rather, as the modus vivendi of liberal society, individuals are endowed with rights and liberties, granted by and protected by the state, which they pursue variously. In this liberal society, as mentioned in several of the essays, the individual serves as the terminus a qou and the terminus ad quem. As a corollary, the pluralistic interested are relegated to private sphere, and the individuals to the pursuit of their own private ends. This has invariably lead to an emptying out of the public sphere and the political. In reworking Carl Schmidt, Mouffe cites the tension between liberalism and democracy. In distinction from liberalism, according Schmidt, democracy is defined by the logic of identity between governed and the government. Meaning there are other versions of democracy then the liberal democracy that we have come to know and live in the West in the 21st century. Mouffe cites the examples of authoritarian democracy in modern totalitarian regimes that represented the popular will and the republican democracy of the Italian city-states in the late Middle-Ages and early Renaissance. After the crisis of parliamentarism in fin-de-ciecle Europe, the representational model has been reconstituted without its prior foundationalist strivings. In the post-World War II model, the reconstituted political is envisaged as the space where various constituencies elect their elites. In the emptied out public space, tensions are negotiated in the domain of parliamentary politics. Mouffe is committed to the democratic project and as another layer of this work articulates a radical theory of democratization.

3. Articulating a radical theory of democratization. She describes as the expansion of democracy into various other areas of our lives and societies The definition of democratization then being not just who has the right to vote but where that right to vote is exercised. This can be extrapolated to mean an alternative model as opposed to the hierarchical, patriarchal, bureaucratic models that are operative in the economic, corporate, and public spheres. It is also intended as an alternative to and a rebuke of the dictatorial and bureaucratic models that were operative in the Soviet communist block. This is the least well-developed model and conceptualization of the four described in this work. It is also one of the most intriguing. This is a promising area for Mouffe to develop further in her emeritus years or for one of her proteges or another scholar to pick-up and carry on where she handed off the torch. In many ways this is an area of intersectionality between the radical democratic political theory and public administration. Although there is much promise to the idea of expanding the areas where the right to vote is exercised, to date it has not proved an effective model of management. The greater potential may lay as an alternative model of corporate governance. In the sense that not-for-profit organizations are governed by the communities that they serve, and that governance is exercised by the boards of directors being constituted by members of those communities.

4. Inscribing the essential boundaries of the political. This responds to and reimagines the early 20th century thinking of Carl Schmidt. This includes the fundamental recognition of the essential us-versus-them logic in political reasoning. This is as old as time immemorial, where we may recall that the Greeks characterized the non-Greeks aka the barbarians as the people who made language that goes bar bar bar. More recently this is the very same logic behind every nativism whereupon every new immigrant nationality that entered America was another of them which was punched down by the last round of immigrant. This is also the logic that has reconstituted the political in the post World War II. Point being that since the 1940s and accelerating more recently that has devolved into the very tribalism and team-centric mentality underlying the red versus blue, us versus them, in the electoral politics of late 20th in early 21st century America (it was at play in the the resistance to George W. Bush's wars and policies, the reaction against Barack Obama, and now coalesces in the anti-Trump movement and the pro-Trump MAGA camp). It was the same us-versus-them at work in the us, the democratic block, versus them, the communist block, that undergird the Cold War. It was the us-versus-them of us, the democratic nations of freedom, versus them, the terrorist insurgents of insert Middle-Eastern country (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan), that characterized the George W. Bush presidency post-2001. We also see it in the friend-stranger of every current nativism, in us the Americans or the Europeans, versus them the immigrants trying to come to America via the Mexican border or them immigrants trying to come into France or Greece or Italy. Beyond every determination of an "us" there is a boundary outside of which there is inherently a "them."

Beyond her advancements in model building and contributions to the literature, Mouffe deserves credit for the practicality of her political philosophy. It is her unique contribution that she does not just present political theory that engages with liberal, Marxist, and authoritarian theorists, she also continues to articulate contributions towards a radical democratic strategy. This strategy has been realized throughout the intervening decades from the time of this work. One case in point is the identity politics of the 1990s and onward; although of course, these movements have yet to realize the ambitions of Mouffe's strategy. Another case is the prescience of her warnings concerning right-wing populisms. These movements have made textbooks use of the friend-enemy, us-versus-them logic described and warned about here. Working through it, we see that Mouffe was very much of her time and ahead of her time. This work is still giving us tools and frameworks to deal with the nativisms and reactionary populisms that have been infecting late 2010s Europe and America.