Agonism
Status: #seedling
#politics #political-philosophy #democracy
Agonism is a political and social theory focused on the importance of conflict in society.
The idea is that conflict is a necessary feature in political systems, and attempting to eliminate it from politics has negative outcomes. Thus, such thinkers say we need to maintain it.
As such, agonism contradicts liberalism, communism, democracies, pluralism (proposed by John Rawl in his view of contemporary liberalism) in political science.
Notorious thinkers:
- William E. Connolly
- Chantal Mouffe
- Bonnie Honig
Mouffe suggested that the "reasonable pluralism" proposed by Rawl is unreasonable because of the restrictions of the conceptions of the good that his definition entails:
Agonistic pluralism, also referred to as "agonistic democracy," is primarily framed as an agonistic alternative to Habermasian models of deliberative democracy. In order for a singular rational consensus to be reached, this would require that all parties endorse the same starting ethico-political principles. Yet, in multicultural pluralist societies, agonistic pluralists contend that this will never truly be the case, since divergent social identities will create irreconcilable differences between individuals. It is argued that Habermasian models of deliberative democracy are ill-equipped for pluralist societies, since they simply purport new paradigms of liberal democratic theory, which rely on the same rationalistic, universalistic, and individualistic theoretical frameworks.
Secondly, agonists view neoliberalism as evidence to how presumed consensus reinforce hegemony. This is influenced by Antonio Gramsci and his theory of cultural hegemony.
To sum up, agonists want t mobilize these diverse passions in politics instead of eliminating conflict. The role of pluralism is to transform antagonistic sentiments into agonist ones. This conversion of enemies into adversaries is the only way to limit hegemony.
Criticism
There is still the need to have some common ethico-politcal principles to mitigate antagonism.
>Critics contend that this lack of common understanding not only problematizes the transformation of antagonism into something else, but it further contradicts the essence of antagonism itself. It is argued that deliberation is constitutive of conflict, insofar as antagonism requires a certain degree of understanding of the "other" and an ability to use shared speech acts to explain points of divergence with opposing parties; this becomes difficult to do under an agonistic framework.