Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary

Anna Marie Smith is Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University.
She is the author of New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain 1968–1990.

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L A C L AU A N D
M O U F F E
The radical democratic imaginary
Anna Marie Smith
London and New York

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First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1998 Anna Marie Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Smith, Anna Marie.
Laclau and Mouffe: the radical democratic imaginary/Anna Marie Smith.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Democracy. 2. Radicalism. 3. Laclau, Ernesto. 4. Mouffe, Chantal. Political
science—History—20th century. I. Title.
JC423.S65 1998
321.8’01–dc21
976–53303
CIP
ISBN 0-203-00671-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-16076-2 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-10059-3 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-10060-7 (pbk)

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FOR ZILLAH

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vii
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction
1
1
Retrieving democracy: the radical democratic imaginary
6
2
Essentialism, non-essentialism and democratic leadership:
from Lenin to Gramsci
42
3
Subject positions, articulation and the subversion of
essentialism
84
4
Self-determination, community and citizenship
116
5
Power and hegemony
151
Conclusion: multicultural difference and the political
177
Notes
203
Bibliography
213
Index
233

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ix
A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S
It is my pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of the friends and colleagues who
made this book possible. I would like to thank Bob Gallagher, formerly of the
University of Toronto, and Sue Golding, Greenwich University, for introducing
me to Laclau and Mouffe’s work. Juan Maiguashca, York University, generously
volunteered to lead me through an independent study course on Laclau and
Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy during the spring semester of 1986, when
I was a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science, University of
Toronto. I drew inspiration as well from Frank Cunningham’s Contemporary
Political Philosophy seminar that was held at the University of Toronto at the
same time. My deepest thanks to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe who were
my Ph.D. advisors and intellectual mentors when I was a graduate student in
Ernesto’s Ideology and Discourse Analysis seminar at the University of Essex,
1987–91, and who read and commented extensively on the manuscript.
My writing was influenced by various discussions that were held at the Society
for the Humanities during my fellowship there during the 1995–6 academic year.
I am particularly indebted to Dominick LaCapra for sharing his work on Lacanian
psychoanalysis and to Etienne Balibar for allowing me to attend his seminar on
historicity, power and violence.
Simon Critchley invited me to write this book and remained an encouraging
supporter throughout the project. Lynne Segal, Jeffrey Weeks and Mandy Merck
assisted me with my research on the British Left. Zillah Eisenstein challenged me
to adopt a more sophisticated grammar vis-à-vis the complexity of contemporary
social forces and political practice. Patty Zimmerman encouraged me to consider
the contradictory and uneven effects of cultural globalization for democratic theory.
Aletta Norval, Peggy Kohn, Paul Apostolidis, Jeannie Morefield, Jodi Dean, Nancy
Hirschmann, Alison Shonkwiler, Susan Buck-Morss, Dominick LaCapra, Martin
Bernal and Isaac Kramnick read the text and provided valuable comments. Julie
Fendo submitted the final draft to editorial treatment in her capacity as my research
assistant. Judith Butler and an anonymous reader were especially generous in their
detailed critical assessment of the manuscript. Tony Bruce at Routledge remained

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A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S
x
a patient and helpful correspondent throughout the project. I accept full
responsibility for the errors and weaknesses that remain in the text.
I would also like to acknowledge the sources of institutional support for this
book. My thanks to the Cornell University Humanities Council which provided
two grants that allowed me to conduct research in Britain. A faculty fellowship at
Cornell’s Society for the Humanities, release from the Department of Government
to take up that fellowship and a semester of study leave provided by the College of
Arts and Sciences at Cornell created favorable conditions for my work. I would
also like to thank Verso for kindly granting me permission to quote extensively
from the following texts: Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: