The hegemonic discourse of democracy interrogated: an approach through Post-Marxist's thought

JUAN JOSÉ MARTÍNEZ OLGUÍN

Madrid

Congreso; XXII IPSA World Congress of Political Science; 2012

International Poltical Science Association

The rhetorical and argumentative uses of hegemonic democratic discourse, with their emphasis on agreement, negotiation, dialogue, tolerance and consensus, conceal the inherent antagonism of society. In other words, these rhetorical and argumentative uses of hegemonic democratic discourse mask the ontological impossibility of viewing society as a totality. Slavoj Zizek might suggest that they are different expressions of social fantasy. This paper is intended to discuss these uses of democratic vocabulary and its civic constellation. From our point of view, current notions of democracy reproduce and preserve the status quo, constituted of conventional notions of liberal democracy and everything that entails in terms of institutions, social practices and asymmetric social relationships. This notion of democracy presupposes the tacit acceptance of liberal-democratic politics as the unquestioned framework of our social lives. In the followings pages, we will put forward theoretical contributions to post-Marxist thought, referring specifically to works by J. Rancière, E. Laclau and S. Zizek to explain this ontological impossibility. The inherent social antagonism entails the real possibility of radicalizing democracy by ?democratizing? it. It also entails changing the rhetorical and argumentative uses of hegemonic democratic discourse.