Western democracies experience profound conflicts that induce concerns about polarization and social cohesion. Yet although conflicts are a core feature of democracies, the forms, functions, and dynamics of democratic conflicts have rarely been subject of political theory. This paper aims at furthering our understanding of democratic conflicts. It analyzes the theory of conflict in Mouffe's agonistic pluralism, confronts it with sociological conflict theory, and presents concrete points of departure for a more comprehensive theory of democratic conflicts. The paper, thus, contributes (...) to two lines of research: (1) Regarding agonistic theories, the paper shows that agonistic pluralism fails to provide a convincing theory of conflict since it underestimates the mechanisms and effects of conflict dynamics (e.g. intergroup cohesion, intragroup conflict, domination, and escalation) and fails to account for the variety of conflict interactions. Proponents of agonistic pluralism should therefore invest more into clarifying their core concept. (2) For a general account of democratic conflicts, the paper proposes to pursue interdisciplinary research on the cognitive concepts shaping conflict interactions, the linked practices of conflict regulation, and the processual dynamics of conflicts. (shrink)

Die Arbeit analysiert die für Hannah Arendts politische Philosophie zentrale Differenzierung von Macht und Gewalt, mit der sie einen Gegenpol zu Denkerinnen und Denkern bildet, die das Wesen der Politik explizit in gewaltsamen Strukturen sehen. Allerdings wird die Abgrenzung politischer Macht von Formen der Gewaltsamkeit in der postmodernen Arendt-Rezeption stark kritisiert. Speziell bei poststrukturalistischen Theorien – etwa bei Chantal Mouffe – wird stattdessen betont, das Zusammenschließen zu einer Gruppe und einem konsensfähigen ‚Wir‘ komme nie ohne ein Moment an gewaltsamen diskursiven (...) Ausschlüssen und Marginalisierungen aus. Arendts begriffliche Unterscheidung von Macht und Gewalt könne daher nicht aufrechterhalten werden. Vor der Folie von Mouffes (gegen-)hegemonialem Antagonismus wird herausgearbeitet, inwiefern Arendts Philosophie durch ihren Fokus auf dem Neu-Beginnen die diskursiven Bedingungen, unter denen Handeln sich vollzieht, tatsächlich nur undeutlich in den Blick nehmen kann. Gleichzeitig wird aber auch gezeigt, dass ihre Konzepte der Welt, des Zuschauers und des Handelns im Sinne von gerere bzw. πράττειν durchaus reichhaltige Anknüpfungspunkte bieten für die Berücksichtigung gewaltsamer diskursiver Strukturen – und zwar ohne die für ihr Denken so charakteristische Unterscheidung von Macht und Gewalt aufgeben zu müssen. (shrink)

Agonistic democrats have enriched debates on the political challenge of pluralism by raising awareness for the depth of disagreements and the political potentials of conflict. However, they have so far failed to explore the shape of institutional settings that are conducive to agonism and show how the agonistic stance may, in a very practical sense, strengthen democracies’ capacity to deal with pluralism and conflict. This article argues that this ‘institutional deficit’ of agonistic democracy can be overcome. It develops an approach (...) that reads theories of agonistic democracy as accounts of conflict regulation and uses principles of agonistic politics as measures for a critical assessment of institutional design. A discussion of a test case that is prominent in the recent literature on democratic innovations for pluralist societies—mini-publics—demonstrates that the principles of agonistic conflict regulation as developed by Mouffe, Connolly and Tully provide the basis for both a critique of certain institutions and a development of alternative designs. (shrink)

One of the central issues facing contemporary political theory is the problem of difference. This problem is perhaps clearest in disagreements regarding the role of pluralism between advocates of deliberative, and agonistic, approaches to democracy. According to agonists, deliberative democracy has only paid lip-service to pluralism, emphasising agreement, consensus, and universalism. Instead, agonists argue that we should accommodate incommensurable difference as central to political organisation. But this shift threatens to emphasise particularity at the expense of commonality, so preventing the transformation (...) of social positions. These debates turn largely around the ways in which power is conceived in relation to democratic interaction, with deliberativists emphasising ideals of free and equal discourse, and agonists, the irreducible role of power. I begin by outlining a structural approach to social power, to show how we are all structurally implicated in power relationships. I go on to show how emphasising structural implication shifts us beyond debates that revolve around difference, drawing attention to the more foundational problem of how agents may come to understand these structures and each other, in ways that surpass or transcend the specific constraints acting upon them. Considering this, I develop a complex account of structural implication that emphasises the relationships between social norms, reasoning, and objective power relationships. This approach illuminates lacunae in similar approaches, particularly regarding the way in which structural power disenables us from often seeing structural imbalances of power, and clarifies the ways in which collective political transformation is possible. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to conflict are oriented towards establishing consensus, either in the form of a resolution of the conflict or in the form of an ‘agree-to-disagree’ standstill between the stakeholders. In this paper, we criticize these traditional approaches, each for specific reasons, and we propose and develop the agonistic approach to conflict. Based on Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic democratic theory, the agonistic approach to conflict is more welcoming of dissensus, replacing discussion stoppers with discussion starters and replacing standstills with contestation. We (...) illustrate such replacements and develop this approach, we analyse technological conflicts in a concrete R&D setting: the global hydrogen economy. From this context, we focus on the conflict between the proponents of blue hydrogen and those of green hydrogen. We conclude by highlighting the advantage of the agonistic approach but also drawing attention to its own specific risk, namely, antagonism. (shrink)

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s post-Marxist analysis pushed Gramsci’s anti-determinism to its limits, embracing a post-structuralist, discourse-centred politics. Mouffe’s subsequent programme for radical democracy has sought a renewed democratic left project. While radical democracy’s post-structuralism enables important insights into political subjectivity and antagonism in contemporary democracies, it also weakens its own critical and strategic capacity. By recuperating its Gramscian heritage, radical democracy could be more theoretically and politically effective. In contrast to discourses operating in an entirely open and contingent political (...) field, Gramscian theory offers a more realist – but non-determinist – account of the structural, enabling and constraining properties of ideologies. It also allows for a distinctive institutional space for society. Society is the site upon which political identities are articulated, and from which existing power relations are challenged. But a conception of society also points to the institutional limits to politics, notable by their absence in post-structuralism and radical democracy. (shrink)

By assuming the permanence of conflict, agonistic theories of politics are apparently incompatible with cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, this paper aims to reveal the potential for a theory of cosmopolitanism in Chantal Mouffe's agonistic theory. In the first section, I present Mouffe's own critique of cosmopolitanism, pointing to its inconsistencies. The second section examines four aspects of Mouffe's agonism and explores their cosmopolitan potential. First, I argue that Mouffe's account of pluralism reveals the interconnectedness of political practices at different levels. Second, Mouffe's (...) sense of the transformation from “enemy” into “adversary” through “conversion” can be extended to cosmopolitanism. Third, the “conflictual consensus” which Mouffe attributes to adversaries is adequate for a cosmopolitanism that lacks a global consensus, but nonetheless is based on a minimal commonality of all human beings. Fourth, contestation, as conflict in the “tamed” mode, has a cosmopolitan potential to contest an.. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many companies engage in dialogue with nongovernmental organizations about societal issues. The question is what a regulative ideal for such dialogues should be. In the literature on corporate social responsibility, the Habermasian notion of communicative action is often presented as a regulative ideal for stakeholder dialogue, implying that actors should aim at consensus and set strategic considerations aside. In this article, we argue that in many cases, communicative action is not a suitable regulative ideal for dialogue between companies and NGOs. (...) We contend that there is often an adversarial element in the relation between companies and NGOs, and that an orientation towards consensus can be in tension with this adversarial relation. We develop an alternative approach to stakeholder dialogue called ‘agonistic deliberation.’ In this approach, conflict and strategic considerations play a legitimate and, up to a certain point, desirable role. (shrink)

This paper argues that the critique of depoliticization in Mouffe’s agonistic political theory needs to be revised. This is because her account of the political does not succeed in filtering out undesirable forms of politicization such as science denialism and other types of post-truth politics. Mouffe's conception of the common symbolic space does not accomplish the task of limiting extreme pluralism in the absence of certain standards about how to correctly apply the fundamental notions of this space. By drawing on (...) a quasi-Wittgensteinian reading of linguistic normativity, I develop principled but non-universalist limits on politicization that are needed for a healthy, well-functioning democracy. (shrink)

In our time, innovation is considered an important way to address societal problems. That we expect so much from innovation to solve the challenges of our time, makes the question what could count as ‘responsible innovation’ more pressing. And that is what this thesis is about. The aim of this thesis is to offer philosophical reflections on responsible innovation in the business context. Since that is still a quite broad topic, the main title suggests its further focus: deliberation and food. (...) The first focus originates from the idea in the academic literature on responsible innovation, that innovators should not just assess by themselves what ‘responsible’ is, but should invite others to think along with them about the social and ethical aspects of innovation. Chapter 2 to 4 zoom in on this aspect of responsible innovation. The second focus has to do with the specific context of application, namely food and the food industry. Chapter 4 and 5 relate the topic of responsible innovation to this context. The question I raise in chapter 2 is whether the ideal of inclusive deliberation is suitable for innovation processes in businesses. I argue that this is not so easy, and provide different reasons why companies might not be willing to involve societal stakeholders into their innovation processes. First, the requirement of deliberation can be tension with the ability of companies to exploit their innovations commercially within a competitive market. Second, deliberation requires a certain degree of transparency about the innovation strategy of a company. Companies might not be willing to provide this transparency, because they fear knowledge leakage to other companies. Third, companies are controlled most often by people with a financial stake. Therefore, we can expect that financial considerations are decisive in the investment decisions of companies. This could conflict with the ideal of responsible innovation to ‘democratize’ innovation processes. Hence, I suggest that scholars should modify the ideal of deliberation in order to make it suitable to the business context, or they should suggest changes in the governance and regulation of markets so as to make deliberation more workable. Chapter 3 discusses the place of conflict and self-interest in deliberation. It starts with a discussion of the literature on stakeholder dialogue. In this literature, the ideal dialogue is presumed to aim at consensus. This also implies that participants avoid conflict and set self-interested considerations aside. I argue that this ideal of dialogue is problematic, especially for a dialogue between companies and NGOs. I show that companies can never completely set aside their profit-orientation, and hence that this ‘self-interest’ always influences their input in a dialogue. Furthermore, conflict and criticism can be necessary to make clear that societal problems require more attention, whether from the general public or from companies. Since the market is an imperfect institution, we need critical citizens and stakeholders such as NGOs to assess the behavior of companies. A certain degree of conflict between companies and NGOs may therefore be more desirable than a focus on consensus. For these reasons, I develop an alternative approach to dialogue in which conflict and self-interest have a legitimate place, and can even play a productive role. In chapter 4, a case-study is conducted to better understand how participants in a dialogue deal with conflicts. In this case-study, I analyzed different dialogues organized by the foundation ‘Ik Kies Bewust’, which issued a front-of-pack health label. In my analysis, I investigate the conflict between, on the one hand, the value of public health and healthy food, and, on the other hand, the commercial interests of companies. In the responses of companies to this conflict, three patterns became visible. First, companies frame their critics as not constructive, because, in their view, they only criticize but do not help to improve the label. Second, they stressed that they are really and genuinely motivated to make food healthier or to make a healthy food choice easier. Thereby, they seemingly tried to counter the image that they are just motivated to make profit. Third, they called on the government to take more control over the label, because this would make the label more reliable and more broadly adopted. I qualify these responses as defensive, which means that the conflict between commercial considerations and public interests is suppressed or ignored. An active response would require to recognize and confront the conflicts and dilemmas that companies face. The case-study makes clear how difficult it can be to engage in dialogue with critical stakeholders. In chapter 5, I reflect on how food innovation can be responsible. In trying to answer this question, I take a certain detour, by starting a discussion about the place of food in a life well-lived. For this purpose, I use the philosophy of Albert Borgmann. On the basis of my analysis of his philosophy, I argue that there are good reasons for engaging with food in active way, for example by growing your own vegetables and home-cooking, instead of consuming food merely passively. I also draw some implications for food innovation. In my view, people responsible for food innovation should critically assess whether new products or services enhance engagement or disengagement. Is it desirable, for example, to develop even more and better pre-packaged meals, or should we stimulate consumers to cook by themselves? I argue that it would be problematic if our overall pattern of dealing with food is characterized by disengagement and convenience, and hence that food innovation should not only go in this direction. (shrink)

Chantal Mouffe ha criticado con vehemencia la propuesta deliberativa de Jürgen Habermas por lo que interpreta como una negación del conflicto político. El objetivo de este trabajo es reconsiderar esta objeción. Para ello se reconstruye la crítica mouffeana a partir de cuatro diferentes planos analíticos en lo que refiere a las posibilidades de comprensión y aceptación del antagonismo. En contra de lo sostenido por Mouffe, afirmamos que a pesar de que el modelo deliberativo coloca un énfasis prioritario en la dimensión (...) consensual de la práctica comunicativa, el conflicto constituye un supuesto necesario e irreductible que está presente en la base del edificio teórico de la propuesta habermasiana. Chantal Mouffe has strongly criticized the Jürgen Habermas' deliberative proposal for what she asserts is the negation of political conflict. In this paper we reconsider this objection by rebuilding this critique through four different dimensions which consider the possibilities of comprehension and acceptation of antagonism. Thus, in opposition to what Mouffe supports, we assert that even though his deliberative model emphasizes the consensual dimension of the communicative practice, conflict lays on the basis of the Habermas' theoretical structure as a necessary and unavoidable concept. (shrink)