Chantal Mouffe, defiant political thinker: “Don't simply dismiss populism”
31 Jan 2019
“Conflict is the driving force of democracy,” says Professor of Political Theory Chantal Mouffe. Her view on politics and society inspires other thinkers but also resonates with new political movements, of which she is a prominent analyst. We paid her a visit in London.
Coincidence or not, on the Eurostar we read an op-ed that is full of ideas that could come straight out of Chantal Mouffe’s theories. She is influential. She gives it to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour straight. She inspired pioneering political movements such as Podemos in Spain and La France Insoumise in France. She's an international presence.
But it all started in Belgium. Mouffe was born near Charleroi and studied philosophy at the university of Leuven from 1960 until 1964. “This was before the university was split into a Dutch-speaking and a French-speaking one at the end of the sixties. The times were different. In those days, world politics reverberated in Leuven as well – particularly the Cuban revolution and the Algerian war. For someone who's susceptible to this, like me, it was an inspiring period.”
Passion
“After Leuven, I went to Paris, where I worked with Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. Philosophers like him had a very rationalistic approach and envisaged philosophy as a science. What was important for him was epistemology. At the end of 1966, I left for Colombia. I had become familiar with Latin American culture in Leuven and was very interested in what was happening over there. When I began teaching philosophy at the National University of Colombia in Bogota, it became clear to me that a purely rational analysis of politics did not suffice. For a big part, politics are emotion, passion. If you can't include affects in your analysis or political practice, you’re way off the mark. People work toward a common goal because they feel passionate about it. Freud already said it: he believed that the lien social is of a libidinal nature.”
Mouffe decided to come back to Europe to study politics at the University of Essex. Countless study and work visits to the biggest American institutions followed. She became directeur de programme at the Collège Internationale de Philosophie in Paris, where she contributed considerably to the field of political theory. In 1995 she became a professor of political theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster, where she remains as an emeritus professor since 2018.
The importance of conflict
Chantal Mouffe is sometimes called a political philosopher, but she prefers to define herself as a political theorist – not to be confused with a political scientist. “In political science, you’re talking about empirical data, numbers that you’re trying to make work. But this produces a limited view of politics. Political theory, by contrast, looks at fundamental concepts, but also at practice.”
If you can't include affects in your analysis or political practice, you’re way off the mark. People work toward a common goal because they feel passionate about it.
She doesn't shy away from radical statements. She defends what she calls a ‘dissociative conception of politics’, according to which politics has to do with conflicts, particularly with those that are called ‘antagonistic’ because they cannot have a rational solution. “This is why democracy cannot do without conflict. Conflict is the driving force of democracy. At the end of the 20th century, you had the so-called ‘third way’: not left, not right, but a so-called ‘radical centre’, allegedly beyond conflict, towards consensus. Well, that doesn’t work."
WHO IS CHANTAL MOUFFE?
°1943, Wanfercée-Baulet, Belgium
- Studies philosophy in Leuven from 1960 until 1964 and continues her studies in Paris and later in Essex.
- Marries the Argentinian political theorist Ernesto Laclau in 1975.
- Publishes Hegemony and Social Strategy with Laclau in 1985. On the Political (2005) is also translated into Dutch.
- Programme director of the Collège Internationale de Philosophie in Paris from 1985 until 1995.
- Affiliated with the University of Westminster as Professor of Political Theory since 1995
- Published For a Left Populism in 2018.
Books
- As editor: Gramsci and Marxist Theory (1979) , Dimensions of Radical Democracy. Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (1992), Deconstruction and Pragmatism (1996), The Challenge of Carl Schmitt (1999)
- Co-authored with E. Laclau: Hegemony and Socialist Strategy . Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (1985)
- As author: The Return of the Political(1993), The Democratic Paradox(2000), On the Political(2005), Agonistics. Thinking the World Politically (2013), In the Name of the People (with Inigo Errejon, Podemos; 2016), For a Left Populism (2019)
"By its very definition, a democracy is conflictual. The demos is divided, and there’s always one part of the demos that has kratos or power over the other part. The main task for democracy is to provide the institutions allowing for this conflict to take place in a way that does not lead to civil war. The prerequisite is that the opponents are not seen as enemies to destroy but as adversaries who have the right to defend their opinions.”
Chantal Mouffe is not interested in normative political theory: she doesn’t want to prescribe what the world should be like. “I want to understand how things are and how they may be changed,” she says. “Of course, it does bring me satisfaction to notice that people are using my ideas, as was the case with Podemos in Spain (the radical left-wing party that emerged from the indignados protest movement against corruption and the austerity policy – ed.). The work of my late husband Ernesto Laclau and myself provided a framework to envisage a new form of politics. The demands of Podemos didn't fit in with the traditional left-right division of the political arena. There was a need for new identities, outside of the traditional parties and the traditional way of practising politics. This phenomenon had already been fascinating me for years. And it still is.”
The radical democracy
You have to radicalise democracy, Chantal Mouffe believes. “I don’t mean that we should start a revolution. I simply mean that we shouldn't submit to the diktat of neoliberalism and globalisation, ways of thinking that arose in the aftermath of Thatcher and her tina: ‘There is no alternative’.”
“Social democratic and socialist parties started to evolve towards the centre until there was no fundamental difference anymore between centre-right and centre-left. The distinction between left and right has become blurred. As a result, a lot of politically justified questions and complaints have remained unanswered for years. We have now reached a ‘post-democratic’ situation.”
The current system and the existing political actors – who have grown into a colourless bunch of people with no passion whatsoever – no longer appeal to the voters, Chantal Mouffe observes. “And those who voice their disapproval about the political system are branded as populists, which is becoming a catch-all term for anyone who disagrees with the established order. This development is not good for democracy. A lot of so-called populist complaints are real democratic demands, and they need to be taken seriously instead of being dismissed as dangers to democracy. If those democratic demands are not formulated progressively, I am convinced that they are going to be expressed in a nationalistic and xenophobic vocabulary. The latter is already happening, and it explains the growing success of right-wing populist parties. The way to stop them is not through moral condemnation, accusing them of being fascist, but by offering solutions to those demands that are inspired by a search for equality and social justice.”
Brexit: "I have no clue"
You can’t talk to a political thinker in London without mentioning Brexit. “Honestly, I don't know what to expect. Nobody has a clue. Everything is possible. We might have a deal, we might not, or we might get a different deal than the one that was negotiated. Brexit might be delayed or abandoned altogether, or we might see a new referendum But it will have to be planned better than the last one. Or we might have new elections, which would be the best scenario for the Labour party. No Brexit also remains a possibility. The worse would be a Brexit without a deal. We have a situation that has deteriorated to such an extent that, whatever the outcome, the consequences for British society are going to be very divisive.”
“I didn't become a Brit after all these years, and I still have a Belgian passport. But whatever the outcome, strictly legally speaking, I’m safe: I can continue working here. But a hard Brexit would be terrible...”
In any case, she will leave Great Britain for a little while at the beginning of February to travel to Leuven and receive an honorary doctorate. Her fourth one. “I heard that there's a lot of ceremony involved in Leuven. I’m curious to see what it will be like.”
Professor Chantal Mouffe was nominated by Professors Matthias Lievens and Stefan Rummens.
https://nieuws.kuleuven.be/en/content/2019/patronsaintsday-chantal-mouffe
