Democracy and Minimal Politics: The Political Difference and Its Consequences

Abstract

This essay explores the consequences of a recent development in political thought: the differentiation between the concepts of politics and the political (in French, la politique and le politique) as it emerged in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Claude Lefort, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, Ernesto Laclau, and others. It is claimed that, apart from very general ontological questions concerning the political structure of social being, consequences have to be considered along two lines: First, democracy as a regime in which the absence of any ultimate ground of the social is accepted has to be defended against the “new antidemocrats” (such as Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, or the Invisible Committee). For this reason, a democratic notion of solidarity is proposed that is based on the never-ending play between politics and the political. Second, a notion of “minimal politics” has to be developed in order to counter recurring fantasies of “grand politics,” that is, of an ultimate revolutionary break or a decisive political act. For that reason, conditions—such as collectivity, strategy, organization, and conflictuality—are described that allow us to decipher given forms of action as political.

Speaking up for the suffering (br)other: Weibo activism, discursive struggles, and minimal politics in China

“…Approaching online media through the lens of discourse, hegemony, and minimal politics has the advantage that such a theoretical framework can be applied to both democratic and non-democratic regimes, because both regime types are characterized by the 'openness of the social' (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 95) and the contingency of hegemonic formations. Instead, the difference between democracies and non-democracies, according to Marchart (2011), is that in non-democracies 'the absence of an ultimate ground of the social is negated, repressed, or disavowed, [whereas] in democracy this absence is institutionally accepted, even promoted' (p. 967). More research is therefore needed in order to tease out how social actors in both democracies and non-democracies use the media to engage in political contestation.…”

“…Second, I draw on James Scott's (1990) work on domination and resistance to investigate how hegemonic discourses are contested in contexts of repression. Third, the concept of 'minimal politics' (Marchart, 2011) provides a view of politics that is more apt to capture the power struggles currently being played out on the Chinese Internet.…”

“Solidarity is our weapon”: Social Mobilisation in Scotland in the Contest of the Post‐Political Condition

“…Our argument resonates with the pledge for a multifaceted and less hefty definition of politics made by some authors (Beveridge and Koch ; Darling ; Nolan and Featherstone ), encompassing what Marchart calls “minimal politics” (Beveridge and Koch :41). Solidarity praxes can thus be conceived as instances of “minimal politics”, since they satisfy the “minimal conditions of political action: collectivity, strategy, conflictuality, organization” (Marchart :971). To substantiate empirically this argument, we asked the question as to whether and how subnational grassroots groups contribute to the “return of the political” (Swyngedouw and Wilson ) through the implementation of solidarity acts.…”

Performance and urban space: An ambivalent affair

“…This mode of resistance is quite fixed and depends on splitting the world into two levels: the false and oppressive representative hegemony of everyday urban life and the good and pure reality revealed through performance. In order to resist the oppressive hegemony, the act of resistance is “afflicted by the question of scale, of intensity or the unconditionality of the act” (Marchart, , p. 971). There is not much room here for the multiple, complex, and uncertain modes of resistance that may be produced through performance.…”