The Uneasy Alliance between Consensus and Democracy

Abstract

Consensus both serves and threatens democratic inclusion. On the one hand it provides the means for individuals to will in common. On the other hand, it can impose assimilatory pressures that marginalize perspectives at odds with the prevailing point of view. Agonists have responded to this tension with a call to abandon consensus-oriented politics, contending an adversarial democracy more credibly advances inclusionary and egalitarian goals. I argue this wholesale rejection of consensus is unsustainable from the very pluralist perspective agonists wish to promote. In place of the view of consensus as an unattainable and undesirable absolute, I put forward an understanding of it as a matter of degree. I contend this understanding better captures the complexity of human relations and allows us to distinguish the potential accomplishments of consensus from its potential hazards.Consensus has a close affinity with democracy. Democracy provides a set of criteria for collective action based on mutual convictions, and this activity of joining with others to make a proposal publicly acceptable serves as a pathway for the realization of democratically prized values tied to freedom and respect. By aspiring to win others' support, one is seeking to rule with them, not over them. And by making claims openly justifiable to those potentially bound by them, one is going beyond self-interest to orient oneself to a common good. 1 However, the search for consensus is all too often inconclusive. Persistent disagreement characterizes the social world, and against this backdrop, the George Vasilev is a member

Agonism in education: a systematic scoping review and discussion of its educational potential

“…Englund (2016) argues that an agonistic approach places individual identity in focus and thus conflicts can easily become clashes between individuals, rather than between political ideals or perspectives. Erman (2009) points out that Mouffe does not explain how antagonism can transform into agonism; and Vasilev (2015) writes: "Mouffe asserts that a layer of commonality is necessary to bind together the radically plural polity she envisages (p. 81)" -however, the nature of this commonality (i.e. commitment to liberty and equality) is not clearly defined and a requirement for openness to engage with alternative perspectives is implied.…”

Push Factors towards Consociational Democracy in Plural SubNational Polities: The Case of Mandera County, Kenya

“…Competitive politics are characterized by conflicts without which democracy loses its raison d'etre (Vasilev, 2015). The concept of conflict that Vasilev alludes to in his argument is not necessarily underpinned by violence but rather an expression of disagreements between the contending parties.…”

On the limits of the political: The problem of overly permissive pluralism in Mouffe's agonism

“…Agonism is a mode of social interaction among persons who “share a common symbolic space” despite their ineliminable conflicts about how to organize this space (Mouffe, 2000, p. 13). With the category of the common symbolic space, Mouffe seems to suggest that the members of a political community minimally share certain commitments, conceptual schemes and/or forms of life despite the lack of rational consensus on further political questions (Vasilev, 2015, p. 81). As a result, agonistic democracy aims to find a way for peaceful coexistence among groups with certain commonalities without denying the role of any conflicting party as a legitimate political adversary.…”

“…The critique of agonistic political theory has often been centered on two different families of arguments. On the one hand, some critics argue that Mouffe's rejection of consensus‐centric political theory is not sustainable as agonistic theory itself relies on the possibility of a minimal consensus (Erman, 2009; Knops, 2007; Vasilev, 2015). On the other hand, others hold that Mouffe and Laclau's poststructuralist ontological argument about the political nature of social reality has relativistic implications as it does not offer any specific normative orientation (Geras, 1988, p. 50; Townshend, 2004, p. 273).…”