What is Agonism?

Agonism, a word only two letters from antagonism, but worlds apart in the world of political theory. Agonism is, in fact, one of my favorite political theories. Thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe and William Connolly are usually counted as "belonging" to this perspectives, although it should be said that they vary from each other in quite distinct ways.

"The world is a place of conflict." That could be a good starting point. Agonistic political theory is in many ways a respons to liberal theory, that is driven towards consensus. But there are many problems with consensus, nobel as the thought may be - in fact, more problems than with conflict, paradoxically enough.

Chantal Mouffe's take on agonism comes from the place of seeing conflicting perspectives as something natural. Conflict in other words is not necessarily negative. What is negative, Mouffe argues, is when conflict takes on a form that threatens the function of the political. Put differently: We need not always agree, in fact, we are bound not to agree with one another at some point. The question then is; how do we meet each other in a way where our different perspectives can be acknowledged as legitimate claims and interests, and discuss them publicly - even if the debate may become ever so heated at times?

Mouffe argues that the political should be about one thing: turning antagonistic (illegitimate) enemies into agonistic (legitimate) adversaries. The problem built into most liberal thought is that politics should strive for an ever increasing amount of consensus. The agonists however argue that the only way of achieving such a goal is to remove claims that are too disharmonious from the debate all together. And once this process is started it takes an ever narrowing turn - the longing for consensus is effectively removing the opportunity of opposition, bit by bit, until there all opposing thoughts and claims have been made labelled "illegit" and therefor can be ignored.

If the political model adapted is (as it is today) to refuse to give legitimacy to a number of claims - instead of seing them as legitimate (in a political sense) no matter how objectionable they are - this is effectively removing the political from politics, as it removes the demos (the people's built-in patchwork of desires, claims and aspirations) from democracy (from the processes of legislation and public debate).

William Connolly has given some thought to how this may be achieved. What Connolly proposes rests on the same notion, in terms of acknowledging that other people have the right to be heard and not be ignored or forced out of the political. Connolly's aspiration is to recognize the possibility of associating yourself with different "minorities" in different questions; a model that goes against the old "one party fits all"-model. In stead, it is possible to see someone with a similar view on - let's say - drug policy and form an alliance with them on that issue, whilst allying yourself with a completely different group of people in the debate over animal rights, or public healthcare.

The main point with this, is that this identification with multiple groups acknowledges one person's different identities. No person is forced to identify solely as a christian, muslim, carpenter, stuntman, lesbian, convervative or any other identity-label. Further more it creates and interdependence between these groups that makes society more open for various forms of opposition, as this is required when all people are tangled into an oppositional/minority group on at least a few questions close to the heart.

This is of course a brief and slightly crude crash course in agnostic political theory, but it is one discourse that has massively influenced me - not just on a political level but also more generally, in seeing that conflict is not something necessary, and not a defeat. Instead conflict is something that we should try to channel into proper dialog and proper politics, because if we don't: that's when the real problems start.

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Further reading: I suggest the clear and short chapters by Mouffe and Connolly respectively, in Hent de Vries & Lawrence Sullivan (ed:s). (2006). Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press.

This is also a great anthology for anyone who wants to compare their perspective to others, such as the Pope's, or Jürgen Habermas for instance...