Agonistics

1. Agonistic Pluralism: Embracing Conflict as Democratic Vitality

What I intended to show with this agonistic model was that it was possible, even when starting with the assertion of the ineradicability of antagonism, to envisage a democratic order.

Rethinking democracy. Traditional liberal thought often seeks a rational consensus to resolve political conflicts, aiming for a perfectly harmonious society. Agonistic pluralism, however, challenges this ideal, arguing that antagonism is an inherent and ineradicable dimension of human societies. Instead of denying conflict, this approach proposes a model where conflicts are acknowledged and channeled into a productive form.

Adversaries, not enemies. The core of agonistic pluralism lies in distinguishing between "antagonism" (struggle between enemies to be destroyed) and "agonism" (struggle between adversaries). In an agonistic democracy, opponents are not seen as existential threats but as legitimate adversaries who share a fundamental allegiance to democratic principles like liberty and equality, even while fiercely disagreeing on their interpretation and implementation. This "conflictual consensus" is vital for a vibrant democracy.

Passions in politics. This model emphasizes the crucial role of "passions" and collective identities in politics, which rationalist and individualist liberal theories often overlook. Democratic politics is not merely about rational deliberation; it's about mobilizing collective affects and desires towards democratic objectives. By providing institutional channels for these passions to be expressed agonistically, democracy can prevent them from erupting into destructive antagonisms.

2. The Political vs. Politics: Antagonism's Enduring Presence

By ‘the political’, I refer to the ontological dimension of antagonism, and by ‘politics’ I mean the ensemble of practices and institutions whose aim is to organize human coexistence.

Ontological antagonism. The distinction between "the political" and "politics" is fundamental. "The political" signifies the inherent, ontological dimension of antagonism that permeates all human societies, meaning that full objectivity or a society without division is impossible. This radical negativity implies that conflicts for which no rational solution exists are an ever-present possibility.

Organizing coexistence. "Politics," on the other hand, refers to the concrete practices, discourses, and institutions designed to organize human coexistence. These practices, however, always operate within a terrain of conflictuality that is informed by "the political." Therefore, political questions are never purely technical issues solvable by experts; they always involve choices between conflicting alternatives.

Constitutive outside. Collective identities are formed through a "we/they" distinction, where the "they" serves as a "constitutive outside" for the "we." This relational nature of identity means that the affirmation of a difference is a precondition for any identity. While this doesn't always lead to antagonism, it always carries the potential for the "other" to be perceived as a threat, transforming mere difference into a friend/enemy relation.

3. Hegemony: The Contingent Nature of All Social Order

According to this approach, every order is the temporary and precarious articulation of contingent practices.

Power shapes reality. Every social order, far from being natural or objectively given, is a "hegemonic" construction—a temporary and precarious articulation of power relations. This means that any existing order is contingent; "things could always be otherwise." What is accepted as "natural" or "common sense" is the result of sedimented hegemonic practices, not a deeper, objective reality.

Challenging the status quo. Recognizing the hegemonic nature of order is crucial for radical politics. It implies that the current neo-liberal globalization, often presented as an unchangeable fate, is itself a political construct. This understanding empowers counter-hegemonic practices to challenge and disarticulate the existing order, aiming to establish alternative forms of hegemony.

Beyond rational consensus. The concept of hegemony also highlights the impossibility of a universal, rational consensus without exclusion. Every order is predicated on the exclusion of other possibilities, and this exclusion is inherently political. Therefore, political struggle is always a confrontation between conflicting hegemonic projects, none of which can claim ultimate rational justification.

4. Beyond Universalism: A Multipolar World of Diverse Democracies

Abandoning the illusory hope for a political unification of the world, we should advocate the establishment of a multipolar world.

Critique of cosmopolitanism. The idea of a cosmopolitan democracy, aiming for a world beyond hegemony and sovereignty, is critiqued for denying "the political" and often universalizing the Western model. Both traditional and "new" cosmopolitanisms tend to overlook the necessary conflictual character of pluralism, leading to a "pluralism without antagonism."

Pluralization of hegemonies. The alternative to a unipolar world dominated by a single hyper-power is a "multipolar world" characterized by a "pluralization of hegemonies." This agonistic order would acknowledge a plurality of regional poles, organized according to different economic and political models, without a central authority. While conflicts would persist, they would be less likely to take antagonistic forms than in a world enforcing a single model.

Diverse democratic forms. Democracy in a multipolar world should not be equated with the global imposition of the Western liberal democratic model. Instead, it should embrace a variety of forms, allowing the democratic ideal to be inscribed differentially in diverse cultural and historical contexts. This includes recognizing "homeomorphic" notions of human rights and diverse relationships between religion and politics, moving beyond Eurocentric views of modernity and secularization.

5. Europe's Agonistic Future: Unity in Conflictual Diversity

The challenge of European integration resides in combining unity and diversity, in creating a form of commonality that leaves room for heterogeneity.

Beyond post-national identity. Many conceptions of a post-national Europe are flawed by their rationalistic and individualistic frameworks, failing to grasp the affective dimension of collective identity formation. Instead of seeking to erase national identities, an agonistic Europe must acknowledge and preserve the multiplicity and diversity of collective identities, fostering a bond among its components while respecting their differences.

A "demoï-cracy." The European Union should be conceived as a "demoï-cracy," a union of states and peoples that recognizes the plurality and permanence of its constituent demoï. This model respects national identities and allows for the exercise of democracy at multiple levels—national, regional, and even urban—without aiming for a homogeneous European demos. This approach fosters a "federal union" where component units maintain their political existence.

Politicizing Europe. To overcome the EU's "democratic deficit" and disaffection, an agonistic approach calls for a politicization of the European project. This means moving beyond a purely commercial bond and fostering an adversarial confrontation between different visions for the EU's future. By creating a "community of shared projects" and acknowledging conflicting interpretations of common principles, Europe can cultivate a vibrant, contestatory politics.

6. Radical Politics: Engagement, Not Exodus, for Transformation

What is at stake is not any ‘withering away’ of the state or of the variety of institutions through which pluralism is organized. Rather, through a combination of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles we must bring about a profound transformation of those institutions, so as to make them a vehicle for the expression of the manifold of democratic demands which would extend the principle of equality to as many social relations as possible.

Critique of "withdrawal." The "exodus" strategy, advocated by post-operaist thinkers like Hardt and Negri, proposes a mass defection from the state and traditional institutions, believing the "Multitude" can self-organize into an "absolute democracy" beyond power. This approach, however, is criticized for its immanentist ontology, which fails to account for radical negativity and the enduring presence of antagonism.

Hegemonic engagement. Instead, radical politics should involve "engagement with institutions" to bring about a different hegemony. The transition from fordism to post-fordism, for instance, is understood as a hegemonic struggle where capital appropriated demands for autonomy ("passive revolution"). Counter-hegemonic efforts require both disarticulation of existing power relations and the re-articulation of new ones.

War of position. This strategy calls for a "war of position" across multiple sites, involving social movements, political parties, and trade unions. The goal is not to abolish the state but to profoundly transform existing institutions, making them vehicles for democratic demands. Examples from South America demonstrate how state institutions, in collaboration with social movements, can drive significant progressive change, contrary to the "exodus" narrative.

7. Art as Counter-Hegemony: Mobilizing Affects in Public Spaces

If artistic practices can play a decisive role in the construction of new forms of subjectivity, it is because, in using resources which induce emotional responses, they are able to reach human beings at the affective level.

Art's critical potential. In late capitalism, where aesthetics pervades all realms and the market colonizes culture, the question arises whether art can still play a critical role. While some pessimistically declare the end of autonomous art, an agonistic perspective asserts that artistic and cultural practices can offer vital spaces for resistance, undermining the social imaginary necessary for capitalist reproduction.

Cultural terrain as battleground. The cultural domain is a strategic site for hegemonic struggle, particularly in post-fordist capitalism where the production of affects and subjectivities is crucial for valorization. Art plays a central role in shaping "common sense"—the prevailing understanding of reality. Counter-hegemonic interventions can transform this common sense by disarticulating existing narratives and fostering alternative forms of identification.

Agonistic public spaces. Critical art, from an agonistic viewpoint, creates public spaces where conflicting points of view are confronted, not reconciled. Artists, acting as "organic intellectuals," can make visible what the dominant consensus obscures, giving voice to the silenced. Through aesthetic means that mobilize affects and desires, art can awaken consciousness of what is missing and inspire a desire for change, as exemplified by artists like Alfredo Jaar and various "artivist" practices.

8. The Limits of Horizontalism: Why Representation Matters

To proclaim that they announce a new type of ‘molecular’ politics that is bound to displace the ‘archaic’ representative forms of politics is highly problematic.

Critique of anti-institutionalism. Recent protest movements like the Indignados and some Occupy groups, while raising important issues, often adopt an anti-institutional, "horizontalist" strategy, rejecting representative democracy in favor of direct or "presentist" forms. This approach is problematic because it overlooks the necessity of institutional channels for effective political change and the limits of purely decentralized, leaderless movements.

Beyond "presentist democracy." While "presentist" practices in assemblies and camps can foster new forms of collective life, they often lack the systematic focus and strategic capacity to influence government policy or challenge dominant hegemony. The "We are the 99%" slogan, for instance, risks oversimplifying societal antagonisms and promoting a naive belief in a consensual society once the "bad" 1% are removed, rather than engaging in a complex political analysis.

The state as a vehicle. The anti-state rhetoric prevalent in some of these movements, ironically, echoes neo-liberal ideology. It fails to recognize the state not as a monolithic entity, but as a complex, contradictory set of relations that can be transformed and utilized as a vehicle for popular demands. Dismissing representative institutions entirely forecloses crucial avenues for struggle against the commodification of society and for the radicalization of democracy.

9. Constructing a Collective Will: The Left's Agonistic Challenge

If the protest movements refuse to establish alliances with traditional channels that they deemed as intrinsically impervious to democratic transformation, their radical potential will be drastically weakened.

Call for radicalization. Recent protests, understood as a refusal of the "post-political" order, are interpreted as a call for the radicalization of liberal democratic institutions, not their outright rejection. The widespread dissatisfaction stems from a lack of genuine agonistic debate and real alternatives offered to citizens, leading to a crisis of representation.

Synergy of struggles. To effectively challenge neo-liberal hegemony, a "progressive 'collective will'" must be constructed through a "chain of equivalences" among diverse struggles. This requires a synergy between extra-parliamentary activism and engagement with parliamentary institutions. Movements that refuse alliances with traditional political channels risk weakening their radical potential and seeing their protests quickly forgotten.

Left populism. A genuine left must emerge to offer a clear alternative to the social-liberal consensus. This involves mobilizing passions to construct a "people" by defining an adversary—not immigrants or minorities, as in right-wing populism, but the configuration of forces sustaining neo-liberal hegemony. This "left populism" aims to transform democratic institutions, making them more representative and accountable, and to re-establish the priority of democratic values.

Last updated: January 11, 2026