Education and articulation: Laclau and Mouffe’s radical democracy in school

This paper outlines a theory of radical democratic education by addressing a key concept in Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: articulation. Through their concept of articulation, Laclau and Mouffe attempt to liberate Gramsci’s theory of hegemony from Marxist economism, and adapt it to a political sphere inhabited by a plurality of struggles and agents none of which is predominant. However, while for Gramsci the political process of hegemony formation has an explicit educational dimension, Laclau and Mouffe ignore this dimension altogether. My discussion starts with elaborating the concept of articulation and analysing it in terms of three dimensions: performance, connection and transformation. I then address the role of education in Gramsci’s politics, in which the figure of the intellectual is central, and argue that radical democratic education requires renouncing that figure. In the final section, I offer a theory of such education, in which both teacher and students articulate their political differences and identities

Putting the discourse to work: On outlining a praxis of democratic leadership development

This article offers a praxis of democratic leadership development, arguing that the framework presented can act as a means of rethinking how collective forms of leadership are developed within and between organisations. Building on notions of leadership development as process and person-based, we interpret these as contested, democratic and contingent discursive achievements in a process of developing. Post-foundationalist theory, particularly the work of Ernesto Laclau, is introduced as a means of ‘democratizing’ key dimensions of leadership development: working with ‘leadership’ and ‘democracy’ as empty-floating signifiers holding the potential to generate energetic engagements between leadership development participants. A framework consisting of four dimensions is introduced, with particular attention paid within each dimension to its practice relevance. First, we seek to democratise the leader-subject, reinterpreted as a contested and contingent signifying subject of discourse. Second, we seek to radicalise the process of development through foregrounding conflict and agonistic practice. Third, we introduce the notion of symbolic violence as a means of thinking about direction setting within development contexts. Fourth, we argue for development that pays attention to the unknown, to the gaps in discourse. We explore each dimension in relation to an illustrative example, a cross-organisational women’s group in the Pacific

Critical research on populism: Nine rules of engagement

This article formulates precise questions and ‘rules of engagement’ designed to advance our understanding of the role populism can and should play in the present political conjuncture, with potentially significant implications for critical management and organization studies and beyond. Drawing on the work of Ernesto Laclau and others working within the post-Marxist discourse theory tradition, we defend a concept of populism understood as a form of reason that centres around a claim to represent ‘the people’, discursively constructed as an underdog in opposition to an illegitimate ‘elite’. A formal discursive approach to populism brings with it important advantages. For example, it establishes that a populist logic can be invoked to further very different political goals, from radical left to right, or from progressive to regressive. It sharpens too our grasp of important issues that are otherwise conflated and obfuscated. For instance, it helps us separate out the nativist and populist dimensions in the discourses of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), Trump or the Front National (FN). Our approach to populism, however, also points to the need to engage with the rhetoric about populism, a largely ignored area of critical research. In approaching populism as signifier, not only as a concept, we stress the added need to focus on the uses of the term ‘populism’ itself: how it is invoked, by whom, and to what purpose and effect. This, we argue, requires that we pay more systematic attention to anti-populism and ‘populist hype’, and reflect upon academia’s own relation to populism and anti-populism

Founding acts: Constitutional origins in a democratic age

Archived content may not be used for purposes that are intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, licence, loan, transfer or any other form of commercial exploitationThe writing of this review was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 704479

Fantasies of subjugation: a discourse theoretical account of British policy on the European Union

The decision by the UK government to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU) marks an important development in policy towards the EU. Policy changes of this kind must be understood in the historical and political context in which they occur. This includes the framing of the policy issues within public discourse. In the UK, policies are formed in a discursive environment which is overwhelmingly hostile towards the EU. Debates are structured by a predominantly Euroskeptic discourse which emphasizes the UK’s separation and heterogeneity from the rest of the EU. Drawing on the logics of critical explanation, this article examines the structure and affective power of Euroskeptic discourses which dictate the terms of the EU debate. It presents a case study of the recent EU treaty revision process, culminating in the Treaty of Lisbon. In so doing, it enables a deeper understanding of recent policy developments

Hail the Snail: Hegemonic Struggles in the Slow Food Movement

This paper explores how new institutional fields are established and extended. We argue that they are created by social movements engaging in hegemonic struggles and which develop social movement strategies, articulate discourses and construct nodal points. We examine how this process played out during the creation and development of the Slow Food movement. We argue that the positioning of Slow Food as a new field was based particularly on using multiple strategies, increasing the stock of floating signifiers, and abstracting the nodal points used. This mobilized new actors and enabled a more extensive collective identity which allowed the movement to progress, extend, and elevate the field of Slow Food. The field of Slow Food was transformed from appealing only to gastronomes to becoming a broader field that encompassed social justice activists and environmentalists. This study contributes to the existing literature on field formation, the role of social movements in this process, and political dynamics within social movements. We focus on the importance of hegemony in the institutional processes around field formation by drawing out how Slow Food created a field through the forging of hegemonic links among a range of disparate actors

Populism and health policy: three international case studies of right-wing populist policy frames

Over the past decade, some of the world's most stable parliamentary democracies have witnessed a revival in right‐wing populist political parties, movements and leaders. Although there is a growing body of theoretical and empirical literature documenting the rise of populism, there has been very little exploration of the implications for health policy of this important political development. In this article, we draw from three illustrative international cases, originating from the USA, the UK and Italy, to explore the ways in which right‐wing populism influences health policy: the election of President Trump in the United States (and subsequent healthcare reforms), the United Kingdom's vote to withdraw from the European Union (Brexit), and how this has played out in the context of the UK National Health Service, and the rise of a politically aligned anti‐vaccination movement in Italy. Drawing on the work of the influential socio‐political theorist Ernesto Laclau, we interpret populism as a performative political act, predicated on drawing logics of equivalence (and difference) between different actors. We use this theoretical framing to explore the ways in which the recent upsurge in right‐wing populism creates a specific set of barriers and challenges for access to healthcare and the health of populations