Ocean Energy in Belgium - 2019

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Which world order: cosmopolitan or multipolar?

Chantal Mouffe, in her contribution "Which world order: Cosmopolitan or multipolar?", argues that the universality of democracy and human rights, as we understand them, is all too often taken for granted. Western politicians and political thinkers alike see it as an all-or-nothing matter: democracy and human rights are to be literally adopted, in the very same way as they are known in Western Europe or North America. All deviations from this model are by definition morally suspect. They thereby overlook the fact that other societies might have developed institutions that are dissimilar to the ones we know, but that are similar in the degree to which they respect human dignity and create social justice. In other words, they fail to imagine that the "good regime" might come in different forms and versions

Globalització i ciutadania democràtica

L’autora pensa que la teoriapolítica que predomina actualment és incapaç de concebre una formade política democràtica apropiada per a aquesta època de postguerra freda i globalització. Per aquesta raó, considera que cal elaborar un nou model,que anomena “pluralisme agnòstic”, els principis fonamentals del qual intenta definir. Al final presenta algunes reflexions relacionades amb el tipus de política progressista que considera la més adequada per aprofundir la ciutadania democràtica en l’època actual de globalització

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

RADIKALNA DEMOKRACIJA IN MODERNA

The author discusses the current debates about modernity and postmodernity from the point of view of the radical democratic project. She tries to show that the critique of the modern rationalist universalist (Enlightenment) epistemology does not necessarily have to lead to political conservatism, as e. g. Habermas (among others) has argued. On the contrary, the critique of this epistemology is what makes possible the articulation of the project of radical and plural democracy. This project is defined as the continuation of the democratic tradition using the tools of the postmodern age.Avtorica obravnava aktualne razprave o modernizmu in postmodernizmu z vidika projekta radikalne demokracije. Dokazuje, da zavračanje moderne (razsvetljenske) racionalistične univerzalistične epistemologije ne pelje nujno v politični konserva-tivizem (kot meni npr. Habermas). Nasprotno, kritika te epistemologije odpira možnosti za artikulacijo projekta radikalne in pluralne demokracije. Avtorica označuje ta projekt kot nadaljevanje demokratične revolucije s pomočjo postmodernistične kritike

Five Minutes with Chantal Mouffe: “Most countries in Europe are in a post-political situation”

Is there a fundamental lack of choice between centre-left and centre-right parties in European party systems? The EUROPP team spoke to Chantal Mouffe on her theory of ‘post-politics’, the need for political parties to offer a real alternative on European integration, and whether populism can have a positive effect on European democracy

Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism

'Dieser Artikel widmet sich dem gegenwärtigen Diskurs über das Wesen der Demokratie und untersucht die zentralen Thesen des Ansatzes der 'deliberativen Demokratie' in ihren zwei wesentlichen Ausprägungsformen: die von John Rawls und die von Jürgen Habermas. Obwohl die Autorin mit diesen Zugangsweisen insofern übereinstimmt, als sie es ebenfalls für notwendig erachtet, eine weitreichendere Konzeption von Demokratie als jene die durch das 'aggregative' Modell bereitgestellt wird, zu entwickeln, gibt sie zu bedenken, daß diese Konzepte nicht im Stande sind, ein angemessenes Verständnis für die Hauptaufgabe der Demokratie zu vermitteln. Indem Anhänger des Konzepts der 'deliberativen Demokratie' festhalten, daß Demokratie nicht auf Verfahrensfragen zur Vermittlung von entgegengesetzten Interessen reduziert werden kann, verteidigen sie zwar zweifelsohne eine Auffassungsweise der Demokratie, die eine weitreichendere Konzeption von Politik beinhaltet. Ihre Zugangsweise ist jedoch sehr wohl - wenn auch in einer anderen Form als jene Herangehensweise an der sie Kritik üben - auch rational, wonach die wesentliche Rolle die 'Leidenschaft' und kollektive Formen der Identifikation im Bereich der Politik spielen, außer Acht gelassen wird. In dem Bestreben die liberale Zugangsweise mit jener der demokratischen Herangehensweise zu vereinen, neigen die Vertreter des Ansatzes der 'deliberativen' Demokratie dazu, die Spannungen, die zwischen ihnen existieren aufzulösen und sind somit nicht in der Lage, das konfliktreiche Wesen der demokratischen Politik zu bewältigen. Die Haupthese, die die Autorin in diesem Artikel vertritt, geht davon aus, daß demokratische Theorie die Unüberwindbarkeit von gewissen Antagonismen zu berücksichtigen hat. Sie vertritt die Meinung, daß ein Demokratiemodell in der Ausprägung des 'agonistic pluralism' dazu beitragen kann, die wesentliche Herausforderung mit der sich demokratische Politik derzeit konfrontiert sieht, besser zu bewältigen: demokratische Formen der Identifikation zu schaffen, die dazu führen können, Kräfte und 'Passionen' für demokratische Modelle zu mobilisieren.' (Autorenreferat)'This article examines the current debate about the nature of democracy and discusses the main theses of the approach called 'deliberative democracy' in its two main versions, the one put forward by John Rawls, and the other one put forward by Jürgen Habermas. While agreeing with them as regards to the need to develop a more of democracy than the one offered by the 'aggregative' model, I submit that they do not provide an adequate understanding of the main task of democracy. No doubt, by stating that democracy cannot be reduced to a question of procedures to mediate among conflicting interests, deliberative democrats defend a conception of democracy that presents a richer conception of politics. But, albeit in a different way than the view they criticize, their vision is also a rationalist one which leaves aside the crucial role played by 'passions' and collective forms of identifications in the field of politics. Moreover, in their attempt to reconcile the liberal tradition with the democratic one, deliberative democrats tend to erase the tension that exist between liberalism and democracy and they are therefore unable to come to terms with the conflictual nature of democratic politics. The main thesis that I put forward in this article is that democratic theory needs to acknowledge the ineradicability of antagonism and the impossibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democracy in terms of 'agonistic pluralism' can help us to better envisage the main challenge facing democratic politics today: how to create democratic forms of identifications that will contribute to mobilize passions towards democratic designs.' (author's abstract)

Feminist solidarity building as embodied agonism: An ethnographic account of a protest movement

Feminist solidarity, after early and idealistic conceptions of an all‐encompassing sisterhood, has become preoccupied with understanding and theorising differences between women. This study develops an account of solidarity as embodied agonism, where difference and contest are experienced and negotiated through the body. Difference and contest are reframed within feminist solidarity projects as resources for, rather than inhibitors to, generating collective agency. This is done through an ethnography of a protest movement in Montenegro, which drew together diverse groups of women, and bring our data into conversation with theories of agonistic democratic practice and embodied performativity. Embodied agonistic solidarity is theorised as a participative and inclusive endeavour driven by conflictual encounters, constituted through the bodies, language and visual imagery of assembling and articulating subjects. Our account of solidarity is presented as constituted through three dimensions, each of which represents a different emphasis on sensory experience: exposing, which is to make one's body open to the hardship of others, enabling alliances between unlikely allies to emerge; citing, which is to draw on others’ symbolic resources and to publicly affirm them; inhabiting, which is to embody the deprivations of others, enabling alliances to grow and persist

'Memory Must Be Defended': Beyond the Politics of Mnemonical Security

This article supplements and extends the ontological security theory in International Relations (IR) by conceptualizing the notion of mnemonical security. It engages critically the securitization of memory as a means of making certain historical remembrances secure by delegitimizing or outright criminalizing others. The securitization of historical memory by means of law tends to reproduce a sense of insecurity among the contesters of the ‘memory’ in question. To move beyond the politics of mnemonical security, two lines of action are outlined: (i) the ‘desecuritization’ of social remembrance in order to allow for its repoliticization, and (ii) the rethinking of the self–other relations in mnemonic conflicts. A radically democratic, agonistic politics of memory is called for that would avoid the knee-jerk reactive treatment of identity, memory and history as problems of security. Rather than trying to secure the unsecurable, a genuinely agonistic mnemonic pluralism would enable different interpretations of the past to be questioned, in place of pre-defining national or regional positions on legitimate remembrance in ontological security terms

Democracia, derechos humanos y cosmopolitismo: Un enfoque agonístico

Conferencia dictada el 7 de noviembre de 2016 en la Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristian