Taming antagonism and the becoming-other of politics

Abstract

To disentangle liberal democratic theory from its rationalism and orientation towards consensus, Chantal Mouffe recommends reviving Machiavelli’s argument about the
institutionalization of conflict. Democracy, she argues, needs to establish a vibrant public sphere in which collective identities can openly contend with each other in an adversarial left/right format. Such an institutionalization of conflict is easily imaginable in the form of, and well known from, parliamentary party politics. But is it extendable to those extra-parliamentary forms of politics that increasingly appear to supplement democratic parliamentarism? Does the ‘becoming-other of politics’ (Arditi 2003) suit or defy the institutionalization of conflict?