Agonism, Democracy, and the Moral Equality of Voice

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6350606
AutoresStephen K White (0000-0002-4817-323X, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume50
Fascículo1
Páginas59-85
Data de publicação2022-02-01
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591721993862
OpenAlexW3133596668
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9

Agonism emerged three decades ago as an assault on the overemphasis in political theory on justice and consensus. It has now become the norm. But its character and relation to core values of democracy are not as unproblematic today as is often thought, an issue that becomes more pressing as contemporary politics increasingly seem locked into notions of unrelenting conflict between “friends” and “enemies.” This essay traces alternative ontological roots and ethical implications of agonism, distinguishing between “imperializing” and “tempered” modes. The former, exemplified in the popular Schmitt-Mouffe formulation, is shown to be fundamentally flawed in its failure to conceive politics in a fashion that does not allow the dynamic of friend–enemy to imperially trump appeals to democratic norms. In a world of insurgent white nationalism in democratic polities, this is no small fault. “Tempered” agonists, such as William Connolly and Bonnie Honig, offer ontologies where democratic norms can gain traction. Despite the admirable qualities of these alternatives, their formulations are nevertheless not fully persuasive. The difficulty lies in their underarticulated accounts of equality. I suggest an alternative formulation of agonism that embraces a central role for the idea of the moral equality of voice, a value that resides in the seam between notions of difference, resistance, and conflict emphasized by agonists, on the one hand, and the idea of fairness emphasized by notions of democratic justice, on the other

Adversary · Agonism · Democracy · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Law and economics · Norm (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Populism, Right-Wing Movements

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