Abstract

The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate Chantal Mouffe’s adaptation of the concept of the political proposed by Carl Schmitt. It is my claim that her adaptation is contradictory to Schmitt’s assertions on the political. The rigidity of the concept of the political cannot lend to promising adaptations for democratic theory. The primary interest lies not, therefore, in possibility or cogency of her adaptation, but rather with the consistency of basing this view on Schmitt’s concept of the political. In this aim, I argue, Mouffe fails to find the correct theoretical background. I thus offer three reasons for misappropriation of the concept of the political: misconstruction of the friend-enemy distinction along the adversary-enemy lines; Mouffe’s claim that consensus is unreachable; and different views of ontology in Mouffe and Schmitt.