Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary

From the primitivization of difference to oppositional
consciousness
Laclau’s critique of what he regards as excessive particularism may be rooted in
part in Gramsci’s problematic conception of the relation between the intellectuals
and the masses. As we have seen in Chapter 2, Gramsci rejects Lenin’s vanguard
party theory, and argues that the organic intellectual must engage in an extensive
democratic dialogue with the “common sense” philosophy of “the people”
(1971:330, 365, 377). Even with these radical departures from the vanguard party
tradition, some strains of elitism continue to shape Gramsci’s theory of the organic
intellectual. Gramsci contends that a particular political movement becomes
hegemonic insofar as it expresses universal rather than particular interests. He
assumes that the organic intellectuals who lead this hegemonic movement have
obtained a worldview that is superior in its coherence and systematic organization
to that of the masses (1971:335). Gramsci’s vision of a dialogue between the leaders
and the led has a precise structure: the led bring historical specificity and concrete
experience, while the leaders supply sophisticated intellectual frameworks. The
masses are therefore portrayed as fundamentally dependent upon the organic
intellectuals, for without them, they would remain trapped within a pre-modern,
incoherent, episodic, provincial and anachronistic perspective (1971:152, 153,
324, 325).

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Gilroy demonstrates, by contrast, that when the African slaves submitted the
modern institution of slavery to critique, they drew effectively upon pre-modern
images, symbols, aesthetic expressions, rituals and practices. Their construction
of a hybrid—or what Haraway (1991) would call “cyborg”—pre-modern/modern/
post-modern discourse may have been the most effective form of anti-slavery
resistance, for the “racial terror” of slavery was both fully compatible and “cheerfully
complicit” with modern Western rationality. As such, an immanent critique that
turned the tools of modernity against modernity itself to rescue its liberatory promise
would have been insufficient (Gilroy 1993:56, 71, 221). Insofar as it is premised
upon the hierarchical distinctions between modernity and premodernity, or
coherent universal rationality and incoherent particularisms, Gramsci’s theory
cannot be reconciled with the way in which Gilroy and Haraway value syncretistic
and cyborg discourses of resistance.
A discourse that represents itself as democratic on the grounds that it promotes
a dialogue between theorists and “the people” and yet decides in advance that the
theorists have exclusive access to a superior rationality while “the people” can
only bring particularistic experience to that dialogue is also highly problematic.
We need to pay close attention in this respect to the strategic exclusions that are
constitutive of the universality/particularity distinction. Scott notes that “man,”
the mythical universal subject of history, becomes a plausible figure only insofar as
his development is constructed as a unified story. That unified story in turn depends
upon the exclusion of the so-called particularisms—that is, the stories about “man’”s
“others,“ the exploited and the oppressed (1988:197). The problem is not resolved,
however, merely by adding these excluded stories into a historical account. Even
with these additions, their exclusion could be perpetuated, for they could be treated
as expressions of an inferior rationality. Hooks, for example, criticizes feminist
discourse that invokes the experience of women of color only to illustrate a
theoretical formulation, without considering the possibility that the works by
women of color could be theoretical discourses themselves (1984:30–1). In this
case, an apparently egalitarian exchange is actually operating like an Orientalizing
primitivism, thereby normalizing the strategic assertion that the discourse of
otherness would remain utterly fragmented and incoherent without the superior
rationality provided from the outside by a Western intellectual elite (Said 1978).
Both Gramsci and Laclau imply that a movement’s political practice corresponds
to its worldview. Laclau states, for example, “If…feminist demands enter into
chains of equivalence with those of black groups, ethnic minorities, civil rights
activists, etcetera, they acquire a more global perspective than is the case where
they remain restricted to their own particularism” (Laclau 1996e:57). Similarly,
Laclau and Mouffe contend that the “equivalential articulation between anti-
racism, anti-sexism and anti-capitalism…requires a hegemonic construction which,
in certain circumstances, may be the condition of consolidation of each one of
these struggles” (1985:182).
While Laclau and Mouffe signal the importance of contextualization in this
passage, they do not actually investigate the complex combinations of worldviews

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and strategies that characterize concrete social movement politics. They tend
instead to suggest that shifts in theoretical perspectives on the part of a given
social movement will give rise to shifts in its actual strategies. Some minority
groups, however, develop highly sophisticated and non-foundationalist analyses
of the social, and deploy subversive appropriations of “universalistic” discourse in
Laclau’s sense, and yet—because of the ways in which they are historically
positioned in contexts that are not wholly of their choosing—decide to mobilize
their struggle in a highly autonomous manner. If a democratic movement finds
itself thrown into a political terrain in which the only emerging democratic
hegemonic forces are deploying “passive revolution” strategies that promote
absorption, neutralization and colonization, then that movement has very little
room to maneuver. It may be obliged to engage in the short-term maximization of
its autonomy to strengthen its constituency, even if it would prefer, on the basis of
its political values, to engage in hegemonic politics. The maximization of a
movement’s autonomy in these difficult conditions may nevertheless become
beneficial for radical democratic pluralism in the long term. Neutralizing
articulations may reduce the democratic potential in every movement’s discourse
in order to safeguard the status quo. The rejection of neutralizing articulations
may allow the movement to deepen its anti-assimilatory identity and to develop
further its specific democratic critique, and that may in turn give its democratic
critique more force in future articulations with other political movements.
Sandoval and Anzaldúa make precisely this point in their theoretical analyses
of women of color feminist discourse (Sandoval 1990; Anzaldúa 1990; Mohanty
1991:36–7). If a hegemonic democratic movement is dominated by white
heterosexual men who have not even begun to engage in anti-racist, anti-sexist
and anti-homophobic politics, and if that hegemonic movement offers only an
assimilatory form of articulation, then the minority leaders’ decision to maximize
their movements’ autonomy would be entirely justified. Gitlin insists that demands
for the recognition of multicultural diversity be kept “in proportion,” and asks,
“What is a Left if it is not, plausibly at least, the voice of the whole people?… If
there is no people, but only peoples, there is no Left” (1995:165). Sandoval and
Anzaldúa might reply, “What is the value of a pretend leftist unity that fails to
address the contestations that have justifiably emerged within and between
democratic social movements?” Because democratic demands are often unjustly
suppressed within apparently progressive blocs, Sandoval and Anzaldúa strongly
endorse a theory of “oppositional consciousness” that embraces a mobile strategy
for women of color feminist movements. They maintain that the latter are right
when they engage in the constant tactical re-evaluation of hegemonic conditions.
They defend women of color feminists’ decisions to shift their primary allegiances
back and forth between many different bloc-oriented positions and autonomous
positions, depending on the prevailing conditions.
Sandoval and Anzaldúa want to see the development of robust leftist political
activism in which multiple democratic movements would learn from each other
and work productively together. Unless minority movements possess some authority

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when they engage in these leftist articulations, however, they will be reduced to
assimilated tokens. Short-term autonomy strategies involving, for example,
voluntary multicultural programs, affirmative action, and minority caucusing, may
allow minority movements to gain the authority that would add more force to
their demands. Speaking from an already empowered position at the bargaining
table where articulation and identity reconstruction take place is something the
traditionally dominant forces in democratic struggles take for granted. This is
rarely, if ever, the case with traditionally excluded minorities.
Sandoval and Anzaldúa have not entirely resolved these problems. Their
arguments tend to rest on the implicit assumption that the minorities in question
can become completely aware of their strategic position and then freely choose an
appropriate course of action. We are never fully conscious of the ways in which we
are always being deployed and positioned, and we must make decisions—or, more
precisely, we find that we have already been positioned as having decided—in
conditions that are not wholly of our choosing. In any event, their theories open
the way towards a contextually-sensitive analysis of hegemonic strategies.
Radical democratic pluralism does face some criticism from liberal democratic
and leftist sources: from individual social democrats who do not accept that
bureaucratization can have tremendously anti-democratic and anti-pluralist effects;
from the traditional Marxists who see virtually every aspect of liberal democracy
as irretrievable for socialism given its historical emergence within capitalist societies
(Cunningham 1987:151, 156–60); from the liberal multiculturalists who
opportunistically deploy identity politics rhetoric but fail to grasp the effects of
class differences (Ahmad 1992); from the traditional leftists who either contend
that radical democratic pluralism’s post-structuralist approach to difference is
inherently incompatible with socialist principles
8
or who fail to value radical
multicultural, anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic politics altogether;
9
from those who believe that the transition to socialism must be won by any means
necessary, including the “temporary” suspension of democratic rights and freedoms
(Harrington 1993:67); and from those “pragmatists” who believe that the electoral
victories of a center-right figure such as Clinton justifies the abandonment of civil
rights and leftist principles. Notwithstanding these liberal democratic and leftist
critics, however, the strongest opposition against radical democratic pluralism
comes from the right. In these conditions, as democratic movements are engaged
in a life or death struggle against almost omnipotent reactionary forces, we need
to balance our critique of these movements’ struggles with a careful study of the
ways in which common sense continues to reside in every moment of popular
resistance.
What is needed in this respect is an historical investigation of the popular that
underlines its organic character without collapsing into uncritical celebration. If
oppressed and exploited peoples are responding to Le Pen, Buchanan, reactionary
men’s religious movements and right-wing militias, then we need to investigate
the ways in which right-wing discourses resonate effectively with their everyday
concerns. If they support anti-corruption and grassroots activist slates in American

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trade union elections and put leftist parties like Blair’s “New Labour,” Jospin’s
Socialists and Prodi’s Olive Tree alliance into office, then we ought to engage
with these historical opportunities in a constructive manner. If “the people” are
withdrawing from political participation altogether, and if they are finding more
meaning in media-packaged celebrity trauma, such as Princess Diana’s death or
Clinton’s consensual sex life, rather than in key political debates, then we must
examine the ways in which social, cultural and political institutions will have to
be radically transformed to make way for genuine democratization. The solutions
to these problems require a close analysis of the genealogical continuities and
contextual specificities of hegemonic formations. Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse
has been central to the work of a whole generation of researchers who are studying
right-wing politics and the “new social movements” in concrete historical
conditions (Escobar 1992; Adam 1993; Epstein 1990; Norval 1996; Smith 1994b).
Our conversations with their work have been indispensable, for they have outlined
a political theory that allows us to grasp the fragile possibilities for the extension
of the radical democratic revolution in our complex contemporary conditions.

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NOTES