Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Overcoming the Institutional Deficit of Agonistic Democracy

Res Publica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Cite this article

Abstract

Agonistic democrats have enriched debates on the political challenge of pluralism by raising awareness for the depth of disagreements and the political potentials of conflict. However, they have so far failed to explore the shape of institutional settings that are conducive to agonism and show how the agonistic stance may, in a very practical sense, strengthen democracies’ capacity to deal with pluralism and conflict. This article argues that this ‘institutional deficit’ of agonistic democracy can be overcome. It develops an approach that reads theories of agonistic democracy as accounts of conflict regulation and uses principles of agonistic politics as measures for a critical assessment of institutional design. A discussion of a test case that is prominent in the recent literature on democratic innovations for pluralist societies—mini-publics—demonstrates that the principles of agonistic conflict regulation as developed by Mouffe, Connolly and Tully provide the basis for both a critique of certain institutions and a development of alternative designs.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The term agonistic democracy is derived from this emphasis, the Greek word agon meaning ‘contest or strife’ (Wenman 2013, p. 28).

  2. By considering its silence about institutional design an important weakness of agonistic theorizing, I support Lois McNay’s critique of the abstractness and ‘social weightlessness’ of radical democratic theories (2014). My attempt to overcome the institutional deficit of agonistic democracy may be read as an attempt to overcome this abstractness with respect to a specific aspect of politics—its formal rules and structures.

  3. An overview on varieties of agonism can be found in Wenman (2013).

  4. The usefulness of mini-publics is disputed among deliberative democrats. Critical voices argue that the goals of deliberative democracy are better realized in the public sphere for which mini-publics can be no substitute (e.g. Lafont 2015).

  5. At least, it suggests a skeptical stance on an exclusive use of such designs. It is easy to imagine cases where the initial hostility among conflict parties renders it advisable to first employ procedural designs of the sort described on the basis of Mouffe’s theory, and it then becomes possible to continue with designs that encourage a more cooperative interchange in case the initial hostility has been overcome.

  6. For an overview see Owen and Smith (2015).

References

  • Bächtiger, André, Kimmo Grönlund, and Maija Setälä. 2014. Towards a New Era of Deliberative Mini-Publics. In Deliberative Mini-Publics. Involving Citizens in the Democratic Process, ed. André Bächtiger, Kimmo Grönlund, and Maija Setälä, 225–245. Colchester: ECPR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bond, Sophie. 2011. Negotiating a ‘Democratic Ethos’: Moving Beyond the Agonistic—Communicative Divide. Planning Theory 10(2): 161–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, Simone. 2003. Deliberative Democratic Theory. Annual Review of Political Science 6: 307–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connolly, William E. 2002 [1991]. Identity\Difference. Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Expanded Edition. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

  • Connolly, William E. 2004 [1995]. The Ethos of Pluralization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

  • Connolly, William E. 2005. Pluralism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Connolly, William E. 2010. A World of Becoming. In Democracy and Pluralism. The Political Thought of William E. Connolly, ed. Alan Finlayson, 222–235. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deveaux, Monique. 1999. Agonism and Pluralism. Philosophy and Social Criticism 25(4): 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dryzek, John S. 2005. Deliberative Democracy in Divided Societies. Alternatives to Agonism and Analgesia. Political Theory 33(2): 218–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dryzek, John S. and Robert E. Goodin. 2006. Deliberative Impacts: The Macro-Political Uptake of Mini-Publics. Politics and Society 34(2): 219–244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dryzek, John S. and Simon Niemeyer. 2006. Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals. American Political Science Review 50(3): 634–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erman, Eva. 2009. What is Wrong with Agonistic Pluralism? Reflections on Conflict in Democratic Theory. Philosophy and Social Criticism 35(9): 1039–1062.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fung, Archon. 2003. Survey Article: Recipes for Public Spheres: Eight Institutional Design Choices and their Consequences. The Journal of Political Philosophy 11(3): 338–367.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fishkin, James S. 2009. When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fossen, Thomas. 2012. Agonism and the Law. Philosophy and Social Criticism 38(3): 327–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goi, Simona. 2005. Agonism, Deliberation, and the Politics of Abortion. Polity 37(1): 54–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gürsözlü, Fuat. 2009. Debate: Agonism and Deliberation—Recognizing the Difference. The Journal of Political Philosophy 17(3): 356–368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gutmann, Amy and Dennis Thompson. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Howarth, David R. 2008. Ethos, Agonism and Populism. William Connolly and the Case for Radical Democracy. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 10(2): 171–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jezierska, Katarzyna. 2011. Radical Democracy Redux: Politics and Subjectivity Beyond Habermas and Mouffe. Örebro: Örebro Universitet.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalyvas, Andreas. 2009. The Democratic Narcissus: The Agonism of the Ancients Compared to that of the (Post)Moderns. In Law and Agonistic Politics, ed. Andrew Schaap, 15–41. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khan, Gulshan. 2013. Critical Republicanism: Jürgen Habermas and Chantal Mouffe. Contemporary Political Theory 12(4): 318–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knops, Andrew. 2007. Debate: Agonism as Deliberation—On Mouffe’s Theory of Democracy. The Journal of Political Philosophy 15(1): 115–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. 2001 [1985]. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.

  • Lafont, Cristina. 2015. Deliberation, Participation, and Democratic Legitimacy: Should Deliberative Mini-Publics Shape Public Policy? The Journal of Political Philosophy 23(1): 40–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen. 2006. Elaborating the ‘New Institutionalism’. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, ed. R. A. W. Rhodes, Sarah A. Binder, and Bert A. Rockman, 3–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Markell, Patchen. 1997. Contesting Consensus: Rereading Habermas on the Public Sphere. Constellations 3(3): 377–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McNay, Lois. 2014. The Misguided Search for the Political. Social Weightlessness in Radical Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, Chantal. 2005a. The Limits of John Rawls’s Pluralism. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 4(2): 221–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, Chantal. 2005b [1993]. The Return of the Political. London: Verso.

  • Mouffe, Chantal. 2013. Agonistics. Thinking the World Politically. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niemeyer, Simon. 2014. Scaling Up Deliberation to Mass Publics: Harnessing Mini-Publics in a Deliberative System. In Deliberative Mini-Publics. Involving Citizens in the Democratic Process, ed. André Bächtiger, Kimmo Grönlund, and Maija Setälä, 177–202. Colchester: ECPR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owen, David and James Tully. 2007. Redistribution and Recognition: Two Approaches. In Multiculturalism and Political Theory, ed. Anthony Simon Laden, and David Owen, 265–291. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owen, David and Graham Smith. 2015. Survey Article: Deliberation, Democracy, and the Systemic Turn. The Journal of Political Philosophy 23(2): 213–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rawls, John. 2005 [1993]. Political Liberalism. Expanded Edition. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

  • Ryan, Matthew and Graham Smith. 2014. Defining Mini-Publics. In Deliberative Mini-Publics. Involving Citizens in the Democratic Process, ed. André Bächtiger, Kimmo Grönlund, and Maija Setälä, 9–26. Colchester: ECPR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaap, Andrew. 2006. Agonism in Divided Societies. Philosophy and Social Criticism 32(2): 255–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaap, Andrew. 2009. Introduction. In Law and Agonistic Politics, ed. Andrew Schaap, 1–13. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Graham and Corinne Wales. 2000. Citizens’ Juries and Deliberative Democracy. Political Studies 48(1): 51–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations. Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Graham. 2012. Deliberative Democracy and Mini-Publics. In Evaluating Democratic Innovations. Curing the Democratic Malaise?, ed. Brigitte Democratic, and Kenneth Newton, 90–111. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tambakaki, Paulina. 2011. Agonism and the Reconception of European Citizenship. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 13(4): 567–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomassen, Lasse. 2007. Within the Limits of Deliberative Reason Alone. Habermas, Civil Disobedience and Constitutional Democracy. European Journal of Political Theory 6(2): 200–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tully, James. 2002. The Unfreedom of the Moderns in Comparison to Their Ideals of Constitutional Democracy. The Modern Law Review Limited 65(2): 204–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tully, James. 2007 [1995]. Strange Multiplicity. Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Tully, James. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key. Volume I: Democracy and Civic Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Tully, James. 2014. On Global Citizenship. In On Global Citizenship. James Tully in Dialogue, ed. James Tully, 1–100. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weale, Albert. 2016. Between Consensus and Contestation. Journal of Health Organization and Management 30(5): 786–795.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wenman, Mark. 2003. ‘Agonistic Pluralism’ and Three Archetypal Forms of Politics. Contemporary Political Theory 2(2): 165–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wenman, Mark. 2013. Agonistic Democracy. Constituent Power in the Era of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wingenbach, E. (ed.). 2011. Institutionalizing Agonistic Democracy. Post-Foundationalism and Political Liberalism. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This article is a further developed version of papers that were presented at the ‘Agonism and Democratic Innovations’ Panel at the 2014 ECPR General Conference and at the 2015 Princeton Graduate Conference in Political Theory. I thank all participants of these events, in particular Graham Smith and Emilee Chapman, for the helpful discussions and comments. I also thank Oliver Hidalgo, Amanda Machin, Mihai Murariu, Markus Patberg, Jan Achim Richter, Maartje Schermer, Ulrike Spohn, Fabian Wenner and Ulrich Willems for helpful comments on later versions of the draft. I am grateful to the members of the Centre for Advanced Study in Bioethics, University of Münster, and the members of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, for numerous inspiring discussions on the subjects dealt with in this article. Also, my thanks are due to the two anonymous referees for their comments on the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Political Science, University of Münster, Scharnhorststraße 100, 48151, Münster, Germany

    Manon Westphal

Authors
  1. Manon Westphal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manon Westphal.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Westphal, M. Overcoming the Institutional Deficit of Agonistic Democracy. Res Publica 25, 187–210 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-018-9397-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-018-9397-2

Keywords

search

Navigation