Podemos: In the Name of the People

by Chantal Mouffe

Íñigo Errejón of Podemos and political theorist Chantal Mouffe here discuss the emergence of these new forces, and in particular of Podemos. They critically engage with both the older traditions and the newly emerging parties and movements; explore new ways of creating collective identities and building majorities; and reflect on the major political challenges facing the left. This is a conversation between two people who are ideally placed to draw on the earlier theoretical work of Mouffe with Ernesto Laclau, and to link it directly into the practice of the new politics.

Genres: Politics

160 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Chantal Mouffe is a Belgian political theorist. She holds a professorship at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom. She is best known as co-author of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy with Ernesto Laclau. Their thoughts are usually described as post-Marxism as they were both politically active in the social and student movements of the 1960s including working class and new social movements (notably second-wave feminism in Mouffe's case). They rejected Marxist economic determinism and the notion of class struggle being the single crucial antagonism in society. Instead they urged for radical democracy of agonistic pluralism where all antagonisms could be expressed. In their opinion, ‘...there is no possibility of society without antagonism’; indeed, without the forces that articulate a vision of society, it could not exist.

Reviews

[Nathan Fisher]

Highly instructive — no matter where one stands in relation to this orientation, this is an honest, forthcoming exchange and exposition of the political bearings of Podemos. Of course, the great tragedy here is that both of them are so wrong about the vitality of historical (here the cudgel 'traditional' is used; no citations necessary, of course) marxism. Not only do they (as Mouffe has made a career of doing) throw the baby out with the bathwater, but this (here comes a scary word, but it is the only appropriate one) revisionism reaches its apotheosis when Errigon claims the Russian and Chinese revolutionary experiences (!) are milestones of 'post-Marxism.' (!!).