The Return of the Political

Published in 2020 (first published 1993)
192 pages

epub


Chantal Mouffe is the Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster. Her books include Gramsci and Marxist TheoryHegemony and Socialist Strategy (with Ernesto Laclau), Dimensions of Radical DemocracyThe Return of the PoliticalThe Democratic ParadoxOn the Political, Agonistics, and Podemos: In the Name of the People (with Íñigo Errejón).

What is this book about?
An original and powerful statement which enables us to close the widening gap between liberal democracy and the events of a disordered world.

In this work, Mouffe argues that liberal democracy misunderstands the problems of ethnic, religious and nationalist conflicts because of its inadequate conception of politics. She suggests that the democratic revolution may be jeopardized by a lack of understanding of citizenship, community and pluralism. Mouffe examines the work of Schmidt and Rawls and explores feminist theory, in an attempt to place the project of radical and plural democracy on a more adequate foundation than is provided by liberal theory.