Agonistična demokracija i primat političkoga
Agonistic Democracy and Primacy of the Political

Summary/Abstract: The author introduces the concept of agonistic democracy as an alternative to the deliberative model, along the lines of John Gray and Chantal Mouffe in their insistence on the primacy of the political in the public sphere and the agonistic character of social relations. On the one hand, the primacy of the political calls our attention to the drawbacks of the solutions to political and social conflicts by means of legal procedures. On the other, the agonistic theory of plural societies insists on relinquishing the harmonious view of society i.e. we have to come to terms with the fact that there are certain unsolvably and irreducibly deep conflicts. Agonistic democracy highlights social conflicts and divisions with the explicit purpose of their discoursive grouping, the formation of a hegemonic discourse and the permanent reshuffling of the existing power-relations, and to avoid their downsizing. Its goal is to turn antagonism (friend-foe) into agonism (friend-adversary). The paper ends on a cautionary note by identifying the shortcomings of all democratic models, including those by Gray or Mouffe, which is particularly important to bear in mind at a time when we are becoming – or have already become – bigger losers in peacetime than in an open conflict. Hence, there is no perfect democratic model or a perfect recipe for eradicating tragic conflicts.

• Details
• Contents