Lasse Thomassen

From antagonism to heterogeneity: discourse analytical strategies

No. 21 (April 2005)

Essex Papers In Politics and Government Sub-Series In Ideology and Discourse Analysis

1 From antagonism to heterogeneity: discourse analytical strategies

Lasse Thomassen

Abstract Ernesto Laclaus theory of hegemony and the ideology and discourse analyses inspired by it have been inspired by a number of sources, among them Jacques Derridas deconstruction. Hegemony analysis and deconstruction are often presented as different but complementary theoretical moves. In this paper I argue that this is not the case, and that they can instead be seen as dealing with the same issues of the conditions of possibility and impossibility of the discursive constitution of ideology and identity. The argument is pursued through an examination of the central categories of the theory of hegemony, in particular antagonism and, from Laclaus more recent work, heterogeneity. Especially the category of heterogeneity renders the theory of hegemony closer to deconstruction. In the concluding section of the paper, I explore the implications of this argument for how one approaches the analysis of ideology and discourse.

Keywords Deconstruction; hegemony; Laclau; antagonism; heterogeneity

2 Introduction1 One of the most influential approaches to the study of discourse and ideology is Ernesto Laclaus theory of hegemony and the so-called Essex School of discourse theory employing Laclaus work. The hegemonic approach to discourse and ideology draws upon different strands of thought, among them Wittgenstein, Heidegger, postSaussurean linguistics, and Lacan.2 Another source of inspiration is Derridean deconstruction which has played a central role for Laclau and those inspired by his work from the very beginning.3 The appropriation of deconstruction for the theory of hegemony is seemingly unproblematic: deconstruction and the theory of hegemony are often presented as the two sides of the same coin, with deconstruction showing the contingency of structures and identities and the theory of hegemony explaining the constitution of structures, identities and ideology.4 Recently, Aletta Norval has put this complementary relationship between deconstruction and the theory of hegemony into question,5 and here I wish to continue this problematisation of the relationship between deconstruction and hegemony. This meta-theoretical question of the relationship between hegemony analysis and deconstruction is linked to a more specific issue arising from Laclaus conceptual apparatus. In his most recent work, Laclau has introduced the notion of heterogeneity to refer to an excess escaping the attempt to discursively objectify the boundaries of identities.6 One example of an heterogeneous entity is the Lumpenproletariat, which, in Marxs work, is a discursive excess escaping the creation of a conceptual frontier between bourgeoisie and proletariat. I shall return to the notion of heterogeneity and to this and other examples in more detail below. The introduction of the notion of heterogeneity requires us to reconsider the notion of

3 antagonism, which has held a central place in Laclaus work.7 This, in turn, raises the question of what one must look for as a discourse analyst, and whether discourse and ideology analysis comprises simply the dual strategy of deconstruction and hegemony analysis. My claims in this paper are threefold. First, with Norval, I will argue that deconstruction is not a negative preparation for hegemony analysis. Second, I will argue that the central category, if there is one, of hegemony and discourse analysis is heterogeneity, not antagonism. As a result, hegemony analysis, like deconstruction, is also concerned with showing the contingency and precariousness of discourses and social identities. Here, deconstruction and hegemony are again shown to be not simply different and complementary discourse analytical strategies. Third, and linked to the previous point, my argument implies that social identities are not necessarily constituted around antagonistic frontiers. Although the argument of the paper is mainly theoretical and conceptual, I shall use a number of concrete examples. In the first section, I examine the existing literature on the relationship between deconstruction and hegemony and discourse analysis. In the following sections, I examine the key parameters of Laclaus theory of hegemony empty signifiers, equivalence and difference, and so on and show the implications of Laclaus recent reformulations of these for the notion of antagonism. I argue that the notion of antagonism must be qualified, and this has implications for the use of the theory of hegemony for the analysis of discourse and ideology. This conclusion is further emphasised with the introduction of the notion of heterogeneity, the consequences of which I discuss in the last section of the paper.

4 Deconstruction, hegemony and discourse analysis Derridean deconstruction has been part of the theory of hegemony from its inception in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. In this section, I will first consider Laclaus appropriation of Derridas work and then the views of several commentators on Laclaus work. Aletta Norval has already dealt with Laclaus appropriation of Derridas deconstruction, so I will only make some brief comments in this regard.8 In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Laclau and Mouffe make reference to the Derridean notion of supplementarity in their deconstructive genealogy of the role of hegemony in the history of Marxist thought. More importantly in the context of this paper is their reference to Derridas deconstruction of structuralism. The deconstruction of structure, showing that ultimately no structure or system can be held together by a transcendental signified, makes Laclau and Mouffe question the emphasis on structure, determinism and necessity in Marxist thought.9 Deconstruction provides an argument for contingency and, hence, for the centrality of hegemony understood as the articulation of contingently linked differential elements into a more or less stable whole. In short, no hegemony without contingency and the deconstruction of structure. In the 1990s, Laclau reformulated this insight in terms of the Derridean notion of undecidability. Deconstruction, he argued, shows the undecidability of structures and identities, and the theory of hegemony provides a theory of the decision in an undecidable terrain.10 As Norval has shown,11 this rests on a misunderstanding of undecidability. Not only is undecidability not a general infrastructure, but a specific notion introduced by Derrida in specific contexts; in addition, the decision does not dissolve undecidability. This goes against the temporal dimension of Laclaus use of

5 undecidability/decision: first undecidability, then decision. Likewise, deconstruction is not a negative and preparatory move that one needs to make and can subsequently leave behind before embarking on the analysis of the decision or hegemony. Deconstruction and hegemony, undecidability and decision, can neither be temporally separated, nor conceived as different and complementary analytical moves. As I shall argue below, this is of utmost importance for the way one does hegemony analysis as it means that it cannot simply consist in showing how a hegemonic project was possible, but must also consider the limits of any hegemonic constellation (that is, incorporate the purportedly specifically deconstructive move into the hegemony analysis). Laclaus appropriation of deconstruction and undecidability as different from and complementary to the theory of hegemony is reflected in the work of some of his commentators. Thus, three introductions to Laclaus work and to discourse analysis all argue that deconstruction and the theory of hegemony are different and/but complementary discourse analytical strategies.12 For instance, Jacob Torfing writes:

Deconstruction in a certain sense implies a theory of hegemony and the theory of hegemony implies deconstruction. Whereas hegemony brings us from undecidability to decidability, deconstruction shows the contingent and constitutive character of decidable hegemonic articulations by revealing the undecidability of the decision.13

While I agree that there is a mutual implication between hegemony and deconstruction, this should not be understood as if the two constitute two complementary and reciprocal movements.14 Deconstruction is not a merely

6 preparatory analytical move, nor is it a purely negative undertaking. As Derrida has argued in several places, deconstruction is affirmative. Deconstruction does not merely take texts and discourses apart, showing the contingency of structures, identities and binary oppositions. Deconstruction does not leave us with a terrain of indeterminacy. As most forcefully argued by Rodolph Gasch, deconstruction aims to account for the conditions of impossibility as well as the conditions of possibility of identities, distinctions, and so on.15 This is the case, for instance, in relation to undecidability and decision: the former at once makes the latter possible and impossible. There is no decision without undecidability, but, importantly, because of undecidability, no decision is ever complete or final. Hence, it is a mistake to argue that deconstruction and hegemony analysis are different and, as such, complementary discourse analytical strategies. Deconstruction already involves what the theory of hegemony is thought to add to it, namely the accounting for the possibility of identities, distinctions, and, more generally, the stabilisation of meaning. As I will try to show in the following, the theory of hegemony should not be seen as exclusively concerned with an account of how decisions and hegemonic totalities come about.

Hegemony, empty signifiers and antagonism While Laclau has formulated his theory of hegemony in a number of works over the years, I wish to start from Laclaus most recent formulation of it. This is not to suggest that one can understand Laclaus work as the teleological unfolding of his present position. Indeed, I shall argue that the argument made here could also have been made starting from the formulation of the theory of hegemony in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.

7 In a recent work,16 Laclau uses the following model to clarify the way hegemonic articulation works:

T ______________________ F

D1

D1 D2 D3 D4

Figure 1

In the model, D1, D2, D3, D4, and so on, represent particular signifiers (or demands), which are articulated into a chain of equivalence.17 One of the signifiers (D1) has been able to empty itself of its particular content. As a result, it can stand in for and represent the chain as a whole, thereby establishing the equivalence among the different signifiers. This creates an antagonistic frontier (F) vis--vis an antagonistic force (T), in relation to which the particular signifiers of the chain of equivalence stand in the same relation insofar as they take part in the chain of equivalence as represented by the empty signifier. This links together the creation of a chain of equivalence, the empty signifier and antagonism. In the original model, T refers to Tsarism and the chain of equivalence is formed by different demands united through their opposition to the Tsarist regime. A

8 more recent example of the same hegemonic construction is the so-called War on Terror in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. The US government was able to put together a coalition united through their opposition to terrorism, especially the international terrorism associated with the names of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime. There was an antagonistic frontier dividing us from them: you are either with us or you are with the terrorists. This hegemonic formation made certain things possible that had not previously been possible (the coalition of hitherto mutually opposed states, for instance), but also excluded certain possibilities from the hegemonic political space (putting into question the particular way the War on Terror was carried out, for instance).

Tendentially empty signifiers and internal divisions It is often unclear whether Laclau is referring to the articulation of identity and meaning as such or to a particular way of articulating meaning and identity, for instance populist discourses emphasising antagonism, equivalence and emptiness. This also applies to the model presented above. However this may be, my argument in the following is that, even in the case of, for instance, populist discourses, it is necessary to pay attention to tendential emptiness, the relativisation of antagonism, and heterogeneity. Just as the world has turned out to be more complex than the simplistic discourse of George W. Bush would allow, so Laclau has complexified his model. The signifiers in the chain of equivalence are equivalent and not identical, that is, they retain some of their mutual differences. Like the other signifiers, the empty signifier is split between its equivalential content and its differential content, thus making it only tendentially empty. Laclau speaks here of a differential remainder18 or a remainder of

9 particularity.19 The tendentially empty signifier is not a transparent medium; rather, the signifier has an ineliminable materiality.20 This is of utmost importance for the model and has implications for the analysis of hegemony. The tendentially empty signifier simultaneously represents the whole chain and is one part of it among others; this is why it appears twice in the model. The tendentially empty signifier is unable to represent the whole as a whole. In Emancipation(s), Laclau links the notion of the empty signifier to the subversion of the play of differences: insofar as the empty signifier does not have any particular differential content, it is able to represent the totality of the relations of differences without being merely one more difference in an infinite field of differences. Yet, insofar as it is only tendentially empty, the (tendentially) empty signifier is not able to fulfil this role. It never ceases to be also one particular signifier among others; that is, it is never just any signifier but always also this rather than that signifier. Similarly, the equivalence never completely dissolves the relations of difference: just as the logic of difference never manages to constitute a fully sutured space, neither does the logic of equivalence ever achieve this.21 Since Laclau conceives of meaning and identity in post-Saussurean terms as constituted through relations of difference, equivalence supposedly halts or subverts the play of difference. Again, insofar as the equivalence is only tendential, this subversion is only tendential. As a result, the signifiers of the chain of equivalence are partly floating signifiers. Their interiority or exteriority to the chain cannot be established in a clear and stable manner, and they can therefore be dis- and re-articulated. This is an essential part of hegemonic struggles; if there were no floating signifiers, it would be the end to any future hegemonic struggle. Before turning to the consequences of this argument for antagonism, I want to deal with another aspect of the argument.

10 The hegemonic operation of a particular signifier taking up the signification of the chain of equivalence is essentially a relation of representation. Importantly it is not the representation of something already present. What is missing is precisely the equivalence, and this is what the relation of representation brings into existence. What is represented does not pre-exist the relation of representation; rather, the latter constitutes the former in a performative fashion.22 Yet, as we know from Derridas deconstruction of performativity, the performative is never pure, but always made possible and contaminated by the constative. The performative representation of the chain of equivalence involves an irreducible element of citation: one of the signifiers of the (as yet not fully constituted) chain is partly emptied of content. We thereby have an operation involving both continuity and discontinuity, both citation and performative institution. The relation of representation is only possible insofar as the particular signifier is gradually emptied, yet this process of emptying is never complete. Thinking of hegemony as a relation of representation in this way means that there is no pure (performative) origin; but nor does the process of representation come to an end and establish the full identity of the chain, where there would be a simple relation of repetition across the different parts of the chain. This suggests that we can think of the hegemonic relation not only in terms of decision/undecidability and representation but also the Derridean notion of iterability. Again, it matters which particular signifier is cited, that is, which signifier takes up the task of representing the whole. While this is ultimately contingent, it is not arbitrary. The particular signifiers are not equally able or likely to take up this task because it takes place in an already partly sedimented terrain permeated by relations of power. Hence, the particular signifier taking up the task of signifying the totality must not only be available, but must also compete with other particular signifiers.

11 This takes place, not on a level playing field, but in a terrain that is itself the result of prior hegemonic articulation.23 Moreover, since the empty signifier is only tendentially empty, it matters which particular signifier takes up this role. The emptying of the signifier opens up a space within which other signifiers can be included and represented, but this opening up is only possible via a simultaneous closing off, because it is the relative emptying of a particular signifier. It is one of the tasks of discourse analysis to examine why some signifiers come to represent the whole and why others do not. The analysis of hegemony cannot stop at the identification of a successful hegemony, but must also examine which alternatives have been excluded. For instance, in the case of the War on Terror, one must ask what would have been possible, and what would have been excluded, if it had not been a War, but a police or law-enforcement operation. Glenn Bowmans study of the way in which Palestinians in exile have imagined their lost nation provides a good example of these theoretical points. Bowman shows how the empty signifier (the Palestinian nation) is necessarily split between its emptiness and a differential remainder. Since the nation is imagined through synecdoche, the lost whole (the Palestinian nation) depends on which part of it one puts in its place, that is, which particular signifier takes up the task of signifying the whole.24 The means of signification at our disposal will depend on our embeddedness in a particular context, which is always partially sedimented and permeated by relations of power. Not every means of signification is equally available in every context, and, given the different contexts, a signifier will have different meanings in different contexts. As a consequence, different significations of the same empty thing (for instance, the lost Palestinian nation) may not be compatible, and some of them may eventually need to be suppressed in order for a

12 coherent and unitary identity to emerge. Insofar as the split in the signifier is constitutive, it is always possible to imagine things otherwise, for instance, for the nation to be a different nation. And there will always be persons and groups whose points of views cannot be represented within the space of representation opened up but simultaneously closed by the tendentially empty signifier. In the case of Palestinians in exile, Bowman shows how these different images of the nation emerge, how they depend on their different contexts of enunciation, and how they mutually conflict.25 One note of caution must be raised at this point, though. Bowmans explanation of the inherent split in the signifier is ambiguous. At times, he seems to suggest that this is so for the intrinsic reasons just explained. At other times, however, he explains it with reference to the geographical dispersion of Palestinians and their physical, political and social separation from their land.26 Likewise, Bowman sometimes presents the dispersion of Palestinians from one another and from their land as the result of some external force (namely, Israeli occupation), rather than as an inherent part of identity that cannot be overcome.27 This would imply that if only they were not geographically dispersed, and if only the Israelis did not occupy their land and discriminate against them, the Palestinians would regain their lost fullness.

Antagonism: the limit of objectivity? If the empty signifier is only tendentially empty, and if the equivalence is unable to completely subvert the relations of difference, then the frontier vis--vis the antagonistic outside will not be a clear and stable frontier (it should be represented in the model above as a dotted line). Antagonism only exists as a discursive effect and only as one end of a spectrum that is never reached. If anything, there are tendential

13 antagonisms, that is, frontiers and identities that are constructed as more or less antagonistic. As argued above, this means that the frontier is open to dis- and rearticulation. For instance, in the War on Terror it was not difficult to create a coalition for freedom, democracy, and so on, and against bin Laden and the Taliban. Once the War went on to Iraq, however, the cracks that were already to some extent present in the coalition started to open up. With Iraq, it was no longer possible to represent the enemy as an absolute threat (or evil). The freedom that was supposed to hold the coalition together appeared to be the freedom of a particular agent, and as a result the coalition was unable to stay intact. Before turning to some of the implications of the relativisation of antagonism for discourse analysis, it is necessary to examine Laclaus different formulations of antagonism. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, antagonism is introduced as the limit of objectivity, as a threat to my identity: [I]n the case of antagonism the presence of the Other prevents me from being totally myself. The relation arises not from full totalities, but from the impossibility of their constitution. Insofar as there is antagonism, I cannot be a full presence for myself.28 And: Antagonism as the negation of a given order is, quite simply, the limit of that order, and not the moment of a broader totality in relation to which the two poles of the antagonism would constitute differential i.e. objective - partial instances.29 Antagonism is conceived as the limit of objectivity because it refers to the subversion of the discursive constitution of meaning and objectivity. More specifically, antagonism refers to the moment when the system of differences is constituted into a chain of equivalence opposing an external threat. The equivalence is established through an empty signifier signifying a set of differences as a totality. Supposedly, antagonism both makes meaning possible (because it provides the condition of possibility for the differences

14 to coalesce into a totality) and impossible (because it denotes a point where the relations of difference, which are constitutive of meaning, are subverted by equivalence). Yet, the antagonistic relation does not actually threaten the identity established through the chain of equivalence. Instead, antagonism is the flipside of equivalence: it is constituted by and constitutes equivalence, because the equivalent signifiers are equivalent insofar as they are all opposed in the same way to the antagonistic Other. Hence, the emptiness of the empty signifier and the antagonistic relation go hand in hand: the emptiness of the empty signifier signifies the fullness of an identity (for instance, of a communal identity by fixing the meaning of its differential elements in relation to that fullness), and the antagonistic Other is supposed to threaten this fullness.30 However, although this type of antagonistic relation is indeed not a positive, differential relation, as Laclau and Mouffe rightly argue, this is not what precludes the possibility of its representation. Antagonism precisely refers to and presupposes a broader totality in relation to which the two poles of the antagonism would constitute, if not differential, then at least objective, partial instances. Since antagonism presupposes the fullness of the community with a clear division between inside and outside, antagonism presupposes the space of signification within which both the community and its antagonistic other are constituted. With an antagonistic frontier, you have a clear inside with a clear outside. Hence, Laclau and Mouffe are both right and wrong when they write in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy that the experience of the limit of all objectivity [has] a form of precise discursive presence, and this is antagonism.31 Antagonism has a precise discursive presence: it is a discursive representation and objectification, and, as such, it is not the limit of objectivity or signification. Similarly, the empty signifier may be the limit of

15 signification insofar as the latter is constituted through relations of difference. Yet, the empty signifier makes the signification of a space of fullness with clear boundaries possible. Both pure equivalence (or the pure emptiness of the empty signifier) and pure difference would constitute a set of fixed relations, namely an identity with clear and stable limits. The limit of objectivity must instead be found in the mutual contamination of equivalence and difference, which, to paraphrase Laclau and Mouffe, is what prevents the impossibility of the constitution of full identities. Slavoj iek has argued that antagonism is a way to externalise the ineliminable split (or lack) in the subject and, in this way, to discursively master the always-already dislocated character of any identity.32 A good example is racism and xenophobia: if only we could get rid of the foreigners, then crime and unemployment would disappear If the identity of the community is constituted through a hegemonic articulation, and if hegemony is essentially a relation of representation, then the identity of the community will be marked by an inherent split (or lack), which it can only erase by projecting it onto something represented as external to and negating the identity. We do not start with a pure inside; the inside is always already dislocated, and it is only the negation of this dislocationits externalisationthat creates the purity of the inside. As a consequence, iek argues, we should distinguish between dislocation and any discursive response to it, including antagonism. Since New Reflections (1990), Laclau has thought of identity and discourse in this Lacanian sense, as constituted around a lack and, as such, inherently dislocated, with antagonism being one way of discursively mastering dislocation, even if this always eventually fails.33 Moreover, as Nathan Widder has argued, the turn to dislocation would be redundant if it necessarily manifests itself in antagonistic relations.34 Laclau concludes:

16

In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy the notion of limit is more or less synonymous with antagonistic frontier. Objectivity is only constituted through a radical exclusion. Later on I came to realize that this assimilation presented two flaws. The first, that antagonism is already a form of discursive inscription i.e. of mastery of something more primary which, from New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time onwards, I started calling dislocation. Not all dislocation needs to be constructed in an antagonistic way. The second flaw is that antagonism is not equivalent to radical exclusion. What it does is to dichotomize the social space, but both sides of the antagonistic relation are necessary in order to create a single space of representation.35

Bowmans study of Palestinian nationalism is a good example of an analysis that takes this point into consideration. He shows how the Palestinian nation is defined through its antagonistic relationship with the state of Israel. At the same time, Palestinian identity is internally divided and only the result of contingent articulations.36 Whatever alternative antagonisms there may be within the Palestinian community occur within and are subsumed to the antagonistic frontier vis--vis the state of Israel. At present at least, these secondary antagonisms do not put the defining antagonism with Israel into question.37 However, the antagonistic frontier vis--vis Israel and the resultant fullness of the lost Palestinian identity masks, not an essence, but the essential lack of an essence, that is, the inherently dislocated character of identity. It is the task of hegemony analysis to examine whether, and how, antagonism is the response to dislocation, and how the construction of one

17 antagonism may rely on the suppression of alternative antagonisms (even if the analysis cannot stop at this).38

Hegemony analysis and the relativisation of antagonism The relativisation of antagonism antagonism is one possible discursive response to dislocation, and there are only tendential antagonisms has implications for the strategy one pursues in ideology and discourse analysis. The discourse analytical examination of hegemony can neither assume antagonism to be always in existence nor can it consist only in looking for antagonisms to emerge. Discourse analysis must look both behind and beyond antagonism. It must look behind antagonism in order to see whether and why an antagonism was constructed, something only possible through a careful analysis of the historical context. Discourse analysis must also look beyond antagonism in order to examine how the antagonism is never fully constituted. That is, discourse analysis must take a dynamic perspective that takes antagonism as one possible outcome among others and not as the teleological aim of any identity formation. Significantly, this outcome is not the end of the matter, but instead requires further analysis of the possibilities of its transformation. Hegemony analysis does not necessarily aim at the identification of antagonisms, and even if an antagonism is identified, this cannot be the last word in the matter. A good example of the kind of discourse analysis that takes antagonism as its endpoint is Sebastin Barros and Gustavo Castagnolas attempt to explain the shape of Argentine politics after World War II. They argue that Peronism was not only a particular hegemonic project, but became the imaginary horizon of other hegemonic projects, thus setting the terms of Argentine politics long after its fall from power in 1955. Peronism shaped Argentina in two ways: it divided Argentine politics and

18 society into two antagonistic camps, and these camps were Peronism and antiPeronismyou were either for or against Peronism. Barros and Castagnola write that Peronist populism introduced the representational resources which functioned as a negative imaginary precluding the stability of Argentine politics. This prevented the formation of a common imaginary sustaining a stable political order. Social differences were immediately read in terms of political exclusion. The political frontiers thus framed by the constitution of political identities, prevented the emergence of a stable hegemonic articulation.39 The problem with this analysis is the link between antagonism and instability. If the imaginary horizonincluding the central antagonismof Argentine politics was the same for almost half a century, then it seems wrong to talk about instability. There was stability with regard to the terms of political and social struggles, and there was a common imaginary shared by the whole political order, including the antagonistic forces. There was a stable hegemonic articulation, and it was the articulation of society into two opposing camps divided by an antagonistic frontier that meant that hegemonic articulation was difficult. Barros and Castagnola write: [t]his strict split of the political space into two fields overdetermined by an equivalential division prevented the constitution of two conditions for a stable hegemonic practice: the presence of a plurality of antagonistic forces and the instability of the frontiers separating them.40 This is the crux of the matter, however. It is correct that hegemony is only possible insofar as frontiers and identities are ultimately unstable. In this sense, dislocation, not antagonism, is the condition of possibility of hegemony. However, although antagonism may lead to war, it does not necessarily lead to the instability of frontiers and identities. In fact, you can only have antagonism insofar as frontiers and identities are stable. Hence, to link the possibility of hegemony to the

19 existence of antagonisms is a mistake. Insofar as there is a pure and stable antagonistic frontier, there can be no hegemonic (dis- and re-) articulation. Moreover, the constitution of the imaginary horizon (through the emptying of a signifier and the creation of equivalence) relies on the exclusion of those who are barred from representation within the imaginary horizon because the latter is not infinite but limited by the differential remainder. One must therefore not stop at the identification of antagonistic frontiers and discourses, as Barros and Castagnola do; discourse analysis must go one step further and identify the discursive heterogeneity resulting from and making possible these antagonistic frontiers and identities.41

Heterogeneity, antagonism and discourse analysis In his most recent work, Laclau has introduced the notion of heterogeneity to refer to a discursive excess escaping categorisation and conceptual mastery. Heterogeneity stands in an undecidable tension between internality and externality vis--vis the boundaries of the discourse.42 As examples of heterogeneity, Laclau gives the Lumpenproletariat in Marxs work, the peoples without history in Hegel, and the subaltern.43 The point of this section is to develop a more systematic account of the category of heterogeneity in the context of the hegemonic approach to ideology and discourse analysis. I will, first, discuss Peter Stallybrasss analysis of Marxs notion of the Lumpenproletariat in order to show how heterogeneity relates to antagonism. I will then further develop the notion of heterogeneity through a discussion of Georges Batailles notions of homogeneity and heterogeneity. The figure of the Lumpenproletariat in Marxs discourse is an example of a heterogeneous entity. The Lumpenproletariat is a discursive excess escaping the conceptual categories of Marxs analysis of capitalism, in particular the determination

20 of the antagonistic relation between proletariat and the capitalist class. Yet, as Peter Stallybrass has argued, the Lumpenproletariat not only shows the limit of the objectification of the relation between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The exclusion of the Lumpenproletariat from the other categories it belongs neither to the proletariat, nor to what is antagonistically opposed to the proletariat, namely the bourgeoisie makes it possible to theorise the relation between proletariat and bourgeoisie as an antagonistic relation.44 The Lumpenproletariat is precisely the irreducible remainder45 Laclaus characterisation of heterogeneity from the constitution of the identity of the proletariat, which is constituted through the antagonistic relation vis--vis the bourgeoisie. The exclusion of heterogeneity from the chain of equivalence supports the unity of the chain and of the identity in question. However, this heterogeneity is not excluded in an antagonistic fashion as opposed to the identity. Two things are worth emphasising here. First, with heterogeneity we are dealing with something excessive and undecidable; in the case of Marxs Lumpenproletariat, something escaping the attempt to conceptualise social relations as antagonistic relations. Yet, the exclusion of the heterogeneous from the antagonism also makes the antagonism possible. In Laclauian terms, the condition of possibility of antagonism is the exclusion of the heterogeneous differential remainder. Second, the heterogeneous is not excluded from the discourse, for instance, from Marxs texts. It is not something external to the discourse, something that would presuppose a closed discourse with clearly demarcated limits. Hence, why we can refer to discursive heterogeneity, and hence why the discursive heterogeneity also undermines the antagonism. The heterogeneous does not simply disappear from the discourse. The existence of these heterogeneous elements shows the ultimate contingency of the

21 constitution of an identity or a discourse, including antagonistic identities and discourses. Heterogeneity therefore provides a privileged point of entry for hegemony analysis. One must locate the heterogeneous elements in a discourse, examine what this heterogeneity is the trace of, and how it is dealt with in the discourse. Stallybrasss analysis of Marxs texts is exemplary in this regard. The Lumpenproletariat provides a point of entry for the analysis of Marxs texts tracing the Lumpenproletariat as an effect of Marxs discursive decisions and examining how Marx deals with the heterogeneous excess arising from these decisions. We should not be led to think that, normatively, there is anything inherently progressive about heterogeneity. For instance, although Marx finds some revolutionary potential in the spontaneity of the Lumpenproletariat, he also sees the Lumpenproletariat as a regressive force and as the foundation for the conservative discourse of Bonapartism. Georges Batailles analysis of The Psychological Structure of Fascism is also telling in this regard. Bataille refers to homogeneity as the commensurability of elements and the awareness of this commensurability. Production, according to Bataille, is the basis of social homogeneity.46 What is productive is useful, and money is the equivalent through which each person exists.

As agents of production, the workers fall within the framework of the social organization, but the homogeneous reduction as a rule only affects their wageearning activity; they are integrated into the psychological homogeneity in terms of their behaviour on the job, but not generally as men [sic]. Outside of the factory, and even beyond its technical operations, a labourer is, with regard

22 to a homogeneous person (boss, bureaucrat, etc.), a stranger, a man [sic] of another nature, of a non-reduced, non-subjugated nature.47

Science can only take homogeneity as its object of knowledge, thus excluding the possibility of a science of heterogeneity. Therefore, it is necessary to posit the limits of sciences inherent tendencies, and to constitute a knowledge of the non-explainable difference, which supposes the immediate access of the intellect to a body of material, prior to any intellectual reduction. Tentatively, it is enough to present the facts according to their nature.48 Heterogeneity does not lend itself to any intellectual reduction within a coherent and closed scientific system. This suggests that the study of the heterogeneous can only proceed through categories or examples including the category of heterogeneity and the example of the Lumpenproletariat that gesture towards, but never appropriate, the heterogeneous. [W]ith a view to defining the term heterogeneous,49 Bataille, echoing Marxs description of the Lumpenproletariat, gives the following examples of heterogeneous waste and unproductive expenditure: the numerous elements or social forms that homogeneous society is powerless to assimilate: mobs, the warrior, aristocratic and impoverished classes, different types of violent individual or at least those who refuse the rule (madmen, leaders, poets, etc.).50 Pointing to these things makes Bataille able to talk about the heterogeneous as a positive experience without falling back upon the homogeneous to understand the heterogeneous and without viewing the latter merely as the failure of the former.51 Here one must avoid two opposite pitfalls. On the one hand, as pointed out by Bataille, heterogeneity is not simply the negation of homogeneity, and one should avoid thinking heterogeneity and homogeneity in a dualistic fashion. Heterogeneity is, rather, the simultaneous condition of possibility

23 and impossibility of homogeneity. On the other hand, one must also avoid Batailles more or less implicit references to a vitalistic and immediate access to the world of heterogeneity. Instead, heterogeneity is, as I have argued above, inherently linked to representation. A related question concerns the relationship between the category of heterogeneity and the examples of it. One must avoid the temptation to reduce heterogeneity to Stallybrasss, Batailles or Laclaus examples or to any other examples. Likewise, we must not think that these examples express an underlying essence. The notion of heterogeneity, as I have used it here, is what Derrida calls a non-synonymous substitute52 for different discursive aporia, which could also be referred to in Laclauian terms as, for instance, the differential remainder and the tension between equivalence and difference. In terms of ideology and discourse analysis, the category of heterogeneity is rearticulated each time it is applied in concrete analyses. Social homogeneity, according to Bataille, may become dislocated by economic contradictions, causing elements to split off from the homogeneous sectors of society. These elements may then align themselves with the heterogeneous elements and form a new social formation. This is how Bataille accounts for the emergence of Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s.53 Despite Batailles tendency to reduce things to the economy in the last instance, from the perspective of hegemony, it is interesting to note that the existence of heterogeneity is the condition of possibility of hegemonic (re)articulation. What orthodox Marxism cannot explain, namely the emergence of the non-class, non-homogeneous phenomenon of Fascism, can be accounted for in this way, according to Bataille. Fascism thrives upon the heterogeneity that cannot be accommodated within the relation between worker and

24 capitalist. Likewise, in the case of Louis Bonapartes successful articulation of the Lumpenproletariat, the phenomenon of Louis Bonaparte is not reducible to the relation between the proletariat and the capitalist class.54 In both cases, the heterogeneous elements are articulated into an anti-system antagonism, even if that articulation never completely succeeds. Significantly, the heterogeneous is not something wholly other as the example of the Lumpenproletariat in Marxs discourse might suggest. It is discursive heterogeneity, part of the discourse, which can, then, be rearticulated. Thus, heterogeneity has important consequences for both hegemony analysis and radical democratic politics. To sum up, then, the notion of heterogeneity is a non-synonymous substitute for different discursive aporia and for different ways in which we can refer to the limit of discursive objectivity. It stands in for other terms, yet it does not refer to some underlying principle or essence, which the other terms merely reflect. One can use heterogeneity to refer to the undecidable relationship between equivalence and difference, that is, to the way in which they both require and subvert one another. In short, heterogeneity can be expressed as the inherent split in the signifier as well as the differential remainder.55 Similarly, we can say that there is something heterogeneous in the relationship between performative and citation. In these cases we are dealing with the limit of objectivity. Yet, what is the limit to hegemonic articulation is simultaneously the condition of possibility of hegemonic articulation. Without the unstable relationship between equivalence and difference, for instance, no hegemonic articulation would be possible. In the terms of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, heterogeneity not only appears in the undecidable relationship between equivalence and difference, but also in the fact that [t]he transition from the elements [i.e., any difference that is not

25 discursively articulated] to the moments [i.e., differential positions articulated within a discourse] is never entirely fulfilled.56 Again, we are dealing with something that is both the condition of possibility and limit of hegemony. Laclau and Mouffe also use the term field of discursivity to refer to the inherent inability of any discourse to close itself as a totality:

a [discursive] system only exists as a partial limitation of a surplus of meaning which subverts it. Being inherent in any discursive formation, this surplus is the necessary terrain for the constitution of every social practice. We will call it the field of discursivity. it determines at the same time the necessarily discursive character of any object, and the impossibility of any given discourse to implement a final suture.57

The field of discursivity refers to the discursive constitution of objects, and to the ultimate unfixity of moments within a discourse. Like heterogeneity, the field of discursivity is not something external to discourse in the sense of a region lying beyond the borders of the discourse. If the subversive character of the field of discursivity was due to its location in a beyond the limits of the discourse, it would presuppose what it was supposed to subvert, namely the discourse as an inside with an outside. Rather, the field of discursivity is an inherent characteristic of any discourse, an internal limit to the discourse. The field of discursivity is closely linked with what Laclau and Mouffe refers to as the discursive exterior which is constituted by other discourses.58 The field of discursivity refers to the ultimate unfixity of the moments within the discourse, whereas the discursive exterior refers to the competing discourses potentially able to rearticulate the discursive moments. The field of

26 discursivity and the discursive exterior are, thus, two sides of the same coin: without one, we would not have the other. In both cases we are dealing with a heterogeneity that cannot be discursively mastered it is the heterogeneity that, in Batailles analysis, makes the fascist articulation of the workers possible. Indeed, we are dealing here with something undermining the very possibility of establishing a discursive inside with clearly demarcated boundaries. Hegemony analysis then involves not only the identification of emerging and persisting discourses, but also as a way of examining the historical character of these discourses the identification of the field of discursivity and the discursive outside. As with the Lumpenproletariat in Marxs texts, heterogeneity does not disappear from the discourse once that discourse has become more or less stable and hegemonic. If there is no discourse or hegemony without heterogeneity, there is no hegemony analysis without attention to heterogeneity, that is, without consideration of what is simultaneously the condition of possibility and impossibility of hegemony. The identification of contingency and conditions of impossibility cannot simply be referred to as a specifically deconstructive move; rather, it is an inherent part of hegemony analysis. As a result, deconstruction and hegemony analysis cannot be distinguished in this fashion. Both are concerned with the conditions of possibility and impossibility of texts or discourses, and the conditions of possibility cannot be clearly distinguished from the conditions of impossibility. Similarly, whatever heterogeneity there may be in a discourse, it is not simply a heterogeneity preceding its supersession with the establishment of a hegemonic discourse and, for instance, an antagonistic frontier. Heterogeneity persists.

27 Conclusion: deconstruction and hegemony, heterogeneity and antagonism The introduction of the category of heterogeneity into the hegemonic approach to ideology and discourse analysis has consequences for the category of antagonism and for the relationship between hegemony analysis and deconstruction. Just as there are only tendentially empty signifiers, so there are only tendentially antagonistic frontiers. Pure antagonism is impossible, and we should rather speak of different degrees of antagonism. As a consequence, hegemony analysis can neither take antagonism as the necessary outcome of the formation of social identities, nor, should it be the case, as the end of the process. Hegemony analysis must examine if and how discursive heterogeneity is articulated into antagonism, but also the heterogeneity created through the articulation of antagonism. As a result, hegemony analysis acquires an inherently dynamic and historical perspective. This is amply demonstrated in the cited analyses by Bowman, Stallybrass, Bataille, and others. So, heterogeneity is absolutely central for the hegemonic approach. It may even be possible to go one step further and argue that the hegemonic approach is not necessarily linked to antagonism, or that antagonism is only one of several forms of hegemony formation or, more generally, of identity formation. Not only is Figure 1 in need of qualification, it may not be the whole story either. This may also suggest that we look to other theoretical sources for analysing identity, ideology and discourse. Given the constraints of space, I can only point towards these alternative accounts here. One possible theoretical source is Wittgensteins later philosophy, which may provide a different account of identity and ideology59 and of radical democracy.60 Other potential sources are Foucault and Derrida, as evidenced in Judith Butlers

28 work.61 Yet another source are Deleuze inspired theories of abundance, for instance the work of William Connolly.62 Heterogeneity refers to the simultaneous condition of possibility and impossibility of hegemonic articulations, including antagonism. Accordingly, hegemony analysis and deconstruction cannot be distinguished according to dualisms of possibility/impossibility, closure/contingency, or decision/undecidability. Both hegemony analysis and deconstruction address both sides of these dualisms. The supposedly deconstructive move is an inherent part of hegemony analysis (and vice versa, we might add). It is at least possible to conceive of hegemony analysis in this way, something that is more likely with the introduction of the category of heterogeneity (even if the theoretical tools for instance the field of discursivity were already there in previous formulations of the theory of hegemony). So, even if hegemony analysts and deconstructionists sometimes emphasise different aspects, hegemony analysis and deconstruction are not opposed and complementary discourse analytical strategies.

Lasse Thomassen is Teaching Fellow in Political Theory in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. He is the author of articles, chapters and reviews on Habermas and post-structuralist theory, and the co-editor (with Lars Tnder) of Radical Democracy: Politics Between Abundance and Lack. He is currently working on a research monograph on Habermas and Radical Democracy, to be published with Routledge, and The Derrida-Habermas Reader, to be published with Edinburgh University Press.

29 Notes
1

I would like to thank Jason Glynos, Leonard Williams, Aletta Norval, Lars Tnder,

and Ernesto Laclau for their discussions about the argument of this paper. I would also like to thank the participants at the conferences where I initially presented this argument for their comments and questions.
2

For Laclaus work, see E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy:

Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd edition (London: Verso, 2002); E. Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990); E. Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996); and J. Butler, E. Laclau and S. iek, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London: Verso, 2000). On the intellectual influences of Laclau and the Essex School, see J. Townshend, Laclau and Mouffes Hegemonic Project: The Story So Far, Political Studies 52:2 (2004), 269-88; A. Norval, Theorising hegemony: between deconstruction and psychoanalysis, in L. Tnder and L. Thomassen (eds), Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2005); and Y. Stavrakakis, Lacan and the Political (London: Routledge, 1999). For discourse analytical studies using Laclaus theory of hegemony, see the contributions in E. Laclau (ed.), The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994); D. Howarth, A. J. Norval and Y. Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse theory and political analysis: Identities, hegemonies and social change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); D. Howarth and J. Torfing (eds), Discourse Theory in European Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004); and F. Panizza (ed.), Populism and the Mirror of Democracy (London: Verso, forthcoming 2005).

30

A. Norval, Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse (London: Verso, 1996); and D.

Howarth, Complexities of identity/difference: Black Consciousness ideology in South Africa, Journal of Political Ideologies 2:1 (1987), 51-78.
4

For this view, see E. Laclau, Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony, in C.

Mouffe, Deconstruction and Pragmatism, pp. 47-68 (London: Verso, 1996), pp. 4760; E. Laclau, Discourse, in R. E. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 431-7, at p. 435; Laclau, Emancipation(s), pp. 78f, 90; Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, p. xi (Preface to the Second Edition); J. Torfing, New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and iek (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 102f; N. kerstrm Andersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies: Understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2003), pp. 56-62; N. kerstrm Andersen, Political Administration, in Howarth and Torfing (eds), Discourse Theory in European Politics, pp. 139-69, at pp. 142-5; and L. Phillips and M. Winther Jrgensen, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 48f.
5

A. Norval, Hegemony after deconstruction: the consequences of undecidability,

Journal of Political Ideologies 9:2 (2004), 139-57.

6

E. Laclau, Paul de Man and the politics of rhetoric, Pretexts 7: 2 (1998), 154, 156;

E. Laclau, Democracy between autonomy and heteronomy, in O. Enwezor et al. (eds), Democracy Unrealized: Documenta11_Platform1 (Ostfieldern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2002), p. 381; C. Pessoa et al., Theory, democracy, and the Left: an interview with Ernesto Laclau, Umbr@ (2001), 9f; and E. Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, forthcoming 2005), chapter 5. The term heterogeneity is used in a similar fashion in J. Derrida, Positions (London: Continuum, 2002, 2nd edition).

31

A note of caution is necessary here: as will become evident, Laclaus texts are

themselves heterogeneous. L. Thomassen, Reading radical democracy: a reply to Clive Barnett, Political Geography 24 (forthcoming 2005).
8 9

Norval, Hegemony after deconstruction. Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, pp. 111f. In New Reflections (pp. 17f,

172f), Laclau introduced the deconstructive notion of constitutive outside from H. Staten, Wittgenstein and Derrida (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), pp. 16-8, 24. On Statens and Laclaus uses of this notion, see L. Thomassen, In/exclusions: towards a radical democratic approach to exclusion, in L. Tnder and L. Thomassen (eds), Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2005).
10

Laclau, Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony, pp. 47-60; Laclau,

Emancipation(s), pp. 78f, 90; and Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, p. xi (Foreword to the Second Edition). Yet, Laclau also rightly acknowledges that Derrida himself theorises the decision, cf. Laclau, Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony, p. 48.
11 12

Norval, Hegemony after deconstruction. Torfing, New Theories of Discourse, pp. 102f, 300; kerstrm Andersen,

Discursive Analytical Strategies, pp. 56-62; and Phillips and Winther Jrgensen, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method, pp. 48f. When making the distinction between deconstruction and hegemony analysis, they all make reference to Laclaus distinctions between deconstruction and hegemony and between undecidability and the decision. For a similar view of the complementarity of deconstruction and hegemony in relation to politics, see S. Critchley, On Derridas Specters of Marx, Philosophy & Social Criticism 21:3 (1995), 1-30, at p. 21.

32

13 14 15

Torfing, New Theories of Discourse, p. 103. Ibid. R. Gasch, The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986).

16

E. Laclau, Constructing Universality, in Butler, Laclau and iek, Contingency,

Hegemony, Universality, pp. 281-307, at p. 303.

17

Hence the . In Laclaus original model, the equivalence is represented by =, but it

is clear from the text that it should be , that is equivalence and not identity. In the model, the signifiers are demands, hence D.
18

E. Laclau, On the names of God, in S. Golding (ed), The Eight Technologies of

Otherness (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 262.

19

Laclau, Constructing Universality, p. 305. See also E. Laclau, Glimpsing the

future, in S. Critchley and O. Marchart (eds), Laclau: A Critical Reader, pp. 279-328 (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 281; and E. Laclau, The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology, Journal of Political Ideologies 1 (1996), 219. In the model, this is represented by the division (split) of the parts of the chain.
20

E. Laclau, Identity and Hegemony: The Role of Universality in the Constitution of

Political Logics, in Butler, Laclau and iek, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, pp. 44-89, at p. 70.
21 22

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, p. 129. Laclau refers to the empty signifier as a name as opposed to a concept or

description, cf. Laclau, On Populist Reason.

23

Laclau, Emancipation(s), pp. 41-3; and Laclau, Structure, History and the

Political, in Butler, Laclau and iek, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, pp. 182-212, at p. 208.

33

24

G. Bowman, A Country of Words: Conceiving the Palestinian Nation from the

Position of Exile, in E. Laclau, (ed), The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994), p. 142.
25

For good examples of analyses similar to Bowmans, see D. Howarth, The difficult

emergence of a democratic imaginary: Black Consciousness and non-racial democracy in South Africa, in D. Howarth, A. J. Norval and Y. Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse theory and political analysis: identities, hegemonies and social change, 168-92 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 175-7; and N. B. elik, The constitution and dissolution of the Kemalist imaginary, in D. Howarth, A. J. Norval and Y. Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse theory and political analysis: identities, hegemonies and social change, pp. 193-204 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 200f.
26 27 28 29 30

See, for instance, Bowman, A Country of Words, p. 139. See, for instance, ibid., p. 164. Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, p. 125. Ibid., p. 126. My account of Laclaus theory of hegemony enjoys the comfort of hindsight as the

notion of the empty signifier is only introduced in a later work, Emancipation(s), whereas the notion of antagonism is already present in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
31 32

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, p. 122. See also ibid., p. 146. S. iek, Beyond Discourse-Analysis, in E. Laclau, New Reflections on the

Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), pp. 251-4.

33

Laclau, New Reflections, pp. 39-41, 44f, 65; Laclau, The death and resurrection of

the theory of ideology, 203ff; Laclau in L. Worsham and G. A. Olson, Hegemony

34

and the Future of Democracy: Ernesto Laclaus Political Philosophy, in L. Worsham and G. Olson (eds), Race, Rhetoric and the Postcolonial (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), pp. 129-64, at p. 137; and Pessoa et al., Theory, democracy, and the Left, 15. At times, Laclau and his commentators continue to treat antagonism as the limit of objectivity, though. Dislocation may also be said to be a discursive construction because it depends on the discursive construction of what is dislocated and of what dislocates, cf. Laclau, Glimpsing the future, p. 319; and T. B. Dyrberg, The Circular Structure of Power: Politics, Identity, Community (London: Verso, 1997), pp. 146-8.
34

N. Widder, Whats lacking in the lack: a comment on the virtual, Angelaki 5 (3)

(2000), p. 133 (note 23). For the argument that we need to distinguish dislocation and antagonism and understand the latter as merely one way among others to construct identities, see A. J. Norval, Frontiers in question, Filozofski vestnik 18 (2) (1997), pp. 51-75; and U. Stheli, Competing figures of the limit: dispersion, transgression, antagonism, and indifference, in S. Critchley and O. Marchart (eds), Laclau: A Critical Reader, pp. 226-40 (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 234-9.
35 36

Laclau, Glimpsing the future, pp. 318f. G. Bowman, A Country of Words: Conceiving the Palestinian Nation from the

Position of Exile, in E. Laclau, (ed), The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994), p. 156.
37 38

Ibid., pp. 143, 155. In Social Ambiguity and the Crisis of Apartheid, in E. Laclau (ed.), The Making

of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994), pp. 121f, 127, 131f, Aletta Norval does to the South African apartheid regime what Bowman does to the imagined Palestinian nation. Norval shows how, despite a seemingly clear antagonistic frontier dividing South African society into two camps, there are, in fact, criss-crossing frontiers. These

35

competing frontiers not only undermine the stability and clarity of any particular frontier. When suppressed, they return as discursive heterogeneity or as, in Norvals terms, ambiguity and indeterminate elements.
39

S. Barros and G. Castagnola, The political frontiers of the social: Argentine

politics after Peronist populism (1955-1973), in D. Howarth, A. J. Norval, and Y. Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse theory and political analysis, pp. 24-37 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 35.
40

Ibid. For Laclau and Mouffes formulation of the same, see Hegemony and

Socialist Strategy, p. 136.

41

The argument here about antagonism and heterogeneity could also be applied to

Laclaus notions of myth and imaginary used by Barros and Castagnola. Laclau, New Reflections, pp. 61-8.
42

Laclau, Paul de Man and the politics of rhetoric, 156. See also ibid., 154; Laclau,

Politics, polemics and academics, 103; Laclau, Identity and hegemony, pp. 72, 77; and Laclau, Can immanence explain social struggles?, 5. For an ambiguous characterisation of heterogeneity, see Laclau, Democracy between autonomy and heteronomy, p. 382.
43

Pessoa et al., Theory, democracy, and the Left, 9f; Laclau, Democracy between

autonomy and heteronomy, pp. 381f; and Laclau, On Populist Reason, chapter 5.
44

P. Stallybrass, Marx and heterogeneity: thinking the Lumpenproletariat,

Representations 31 (1991): pp. 69-95.

45 46

Laclau, Democracy between Autonomy and Heteronomy, p. 381. G. Bataille, The Psychological Structure of Fascism, trans. F. Botting and S.

Wilson, in F. Botting and S. Wilson (eds), The Bataille Reader (Oxford: Blackwell,

36

1997), p. 122. It is tendential homogeneity, though, cf. ibid. For Laclaus use of Bataille, see Laclau, On Populist Reason, chapter 5.
47 48 49 50

Ibid., pp. 123. Ibid., p. 126. See also ibid., pp. 125, 146 (note 3). Ibid., p. 126. Ibid., p. 127. In addition to these things, Bataille refers to the unconscious, the

sacred, and affect, cf. ibid., pp. 126-8.

51 52

Ibid., pp. 126f. J. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. A. Bass (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf,

1982), pp. 12, 25f.

53 54 55

Ibid., pp. 125, 140, 142. Stallybrass, Marx and Heterogeneity, pp. 79ff. Heterogeneity can also be expressed in terms of the irreducible gap between what is

represented (the absent fullness of the community, an absent universality) and the means of representation (a particular signifier). It refers simultaneously to a lack (the particular signifier is never quite up to the task) and an excess (the empty signifier is only tendentially empty because it contains too much difference).
56 57 58 59

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, pp. 105, 110. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., pp. 111 and 146 (note 20). Norval, Frontiers in question; and M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A

Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 89-91.

60

A. Tanesini, In search of community: Mouffe, Wittgenstein and Cavell, Radical

Philosophy 110 (2001), 12-19.

37

61

See her contributions in Butler, Laclau and iek, Contingency, Hegemony,

Universality.
62

Widder, Whats lacking in the lack; W. E. Connolly, Review essay: twilight of

the idols, Philosophy and Social Criticism 21:3 (1995), 130-6. For the political implications, see Tnder and Thomassen (eds), Radical Democracy. For the implications of the argument about heterogeneity for radical democracy and exclusion, see Thomassen, In/exclusions.