Das demokratische Paradox

Mouffe impressively develops an alternative to the dominant paradigms of liberal or consensus-oriented democratic theory. The further development of Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony by Mouffe and Laclau, without therefore wanting to give up the achievements of liberal institutions, aims at a radicalization of democracy: at a stronger inclusion of the conflict dimension of political action, at a return to the core concept of popular sovereignty, at an extension of equality effects to as many social fields as possible while at the same time respecting plural forms of autonomy. With the revaluation of feminist, ecological or pacifist demands in a socialist, emancipatory project, a momentous paradox arises: the project becomes one of radical and at the same time plural democracy.