Radical Democracy by Chantal Mouffe

The above video is the Keynote Address from the 2013 Radical Democracy Conference Social movements that want to create social and political change need a strategy that challenges common concepts associated with democracy. This strategy needs to expand the liberal definition of democracy, based on equality and freedom to include difference.  According to Chantal Mouffe, liberal democracy, while seemingly an open form of government oppresses differing opinions, races, classes, genders, and worldviews. Radical democracy seeks to implement these differences. Radical democracy doesn’t just except these differences, but is dependent on it. If democracy is built to include difference, relationships of oppression will come to the forefront. Then these oppressive relationships will be challenged.

Particularly, Mouffe challenges universalism and abstract individualism. Universalism has never been truly universal; it is always a space inhabited by the hegemonic ideal or identity. Abstract individualism tries to take the person out of history and out of social contexts. This means that the individual is always a product of her traditions and contradictory experiences.

Mouffe really is proposing a radical form of democracy. Essentially, she is saying that we can take all of these different ideologies, views, and opinions, and fit them into political formations in our society. It is important to note, that the differences don’t exist to take over democracy, but just improve democracy by introducing new, innovative concepts not normally associated with democracy. She makes a compelling argument stating, “the so-called communitarians who, while they all share a critique of liberal individualism's idea of a subject existing prior to the social relations that form it, have differing attitudes toward modernity.” (Mouffe 42) In other words, similarities don’t always hold everything together, producing harmony and continuity. As I see it, there are differences, but that is not always a bad thing. Thinking about differences helps secure our own ideologies. Differences also allow us to borrow and incorporate other concepts to improve upon our own understandings and methods.

Personally, I like radical democracy. In a melting pot such as the United States, we should be very open to several different methods of thinking. Obviously though, there will always be a tradition of liberal democracy, but a place as the United States has the capacity to have these differences. The million-dollar question concerning theories such as radical democracy, “How do we make this theory practical?” This is the issue I have. If this theory were to be put in action, all of the differences could not possibly be incorporated. Only those that are not too radical will be given credence. In classical democratic fashion, the overwhelming majority will suppress  the radical minority.

References:

Paul Holdengräber and Chantal Mouffe, 1989, “Radical Democracy: Modern or Postmodern?” Social Text, No. 21, Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism (1989), pp. 31-45