Chantal Mouffe

In an interview with Eva Kelder and Juliët Jonkers, Chantal Mouffe, professor of Political Theory at the University of Westminster, ponders on the notion of ‘passion’ in politics. Although she doesn’t plead for conflict, she does recognize that it’s there and that we should make space for it. Mouffe distinguishes between antagonism and agonism. Antagonism is the us-them polarization that can’t be solved, because the positions of the adversaries can’t be reconciled. However, we can try to give those kinds of conflicts a form of expression in which people are not enemies but adversaries or opposing contestants. This is what she calls agonism. In an agonistic society there is space for differences of interpretation and debate about ethico-political values as liberty and equality. The difference with deliberative democracy is, she says, that in the agonistic model next to rationality allows space for passion: "Let's not think exclusively in terms of individual interest of morality. This is why I insist on the role of passion in politics. People are not only moved by self-interest, rationality or morality but they are also moved by passion. And by passion I do not mean individual passion but collective passion, the element that moves people to act as a collective. I agree that politics is about the common good, but this common good does not really exist because it will always be contested. This is what agonistic politics are about." Compromises between political left and right can occasionally be reached, but compromises in a neoliberal regime of globalization will always maintain the structure of dominance. This is, after all, the basic structure of neoliberalism. "This means", Mouffe concludes, "that the people who are suffering from that system will continue to be affected. It will not change. I do not think we need to make a compromise with neoliberalism. What we need is an alternative to neoliberalism."