Theorizing Agonistic Emotions

Abstract

Democratic theory has had an uneasy relationship with the presence and functions of affect in politics. i Throughout her work, Chantal Mouffe has repeatedly emphasised the importance of recuperating passions for political thinking and criticised universalist, rationalist thinkers whose accounts of politics, to the extent that they take passions into consideration at all, conceive of them as something to be managed or suppressed. For such thinkers, she argues, passions are perpetual sources of instability, located at the antipode of reason.Mouffe correctly invites us to see that passions are ineradicable from politics: they mark collective political identifications that constitute important sources of motivation. Following Lacan, she emphasises that we cannot, as theorists of democracy, ignore the affective forces that fuel and make collective identifications 'stick'. ii Therefore, our goal should not be to repress but to 'tame' passions. Otherwise, we will face two dangers. First, there is always the possibility that undemocratic parties hi-jack passions and play them against the democratic idea. Such is the case of the extreme Right whose rhetoric often resonates with the angry excluded. Secondly, unless democratic institutions supply venues for agonistic encounters, passions can erupt publicly in destructive ways, as is the case of the recurrent riots in the Parisian banlieues.In this paper I seek to sketch the contours of an account of political passions that I think could be compatible with an agonistic understanding of democracy. In a sense, this is an exercise in * I would like to warmly thank Paulina Tambakaki for inviting me to reflect on Chantal Mouffe's inspiring work and for her extremely useful comments on the manuscript. Thanks are also owed to Mathias Thaler, who generously read the paper and made insightful and constructive suggestions.

On agonistic memory

“…Passions and emotions can be relied upon to sustain a collective sense of solidarity without demonizing the adversary and can also be theorized as sustaining democracy. Following Mouffe, Mihai (2014) contends that ‘blindness to the affective dimension of politics and its role in maintaining collective identifications prevents liberal and deliberative democrats from ascertaining the limited role that reason plays in moving people to participate politically’ (p. 34). Emotions, however, should not be viewed as inimical to reason and democratic agonism.…”

“…Emotions, however, should not be viewed as inimical to reason and democratic agonism. On the contrary, as Mihai (2014) argued, emotions should be seen ‘as presupposing evaluations about the political world and as malleable to transformation through agonistic encounters’ (p. 46). As she stated, Until we understand that emotion presupposes – alongside physiological reactions – thought, until we understand that it can be socialized to serve democratic agendas, until we affirm its malleability and responsiveness to agonistic persuasion and exhortations, we will not be able to account for the productive force that it can play politically.…”

“…As she stated, Until we understand that emotion presupposes – alongside physiological reactions – thought, until we understand that it can be socialized to serve democratic agendas, until we affirm its malleability and responsiveness to agonistic persuasion and exhortations, we will not be able to account for the productive force that it can play politically. (Mihai, 2014: 43)…”

Working through the violent past: Practices of restorative justice through memory and dialogue in Italy

“…Building on Mouffe’s theory, Mihai (2014) argued that emotions are culturally constructed and as such they can both promote understanding and lend themselves to being transformed (from antagonistic to agonistic).…”

Public relations theory: An agonistic critique of the turns to dialogue and symmetry

“…Instead we need to consider the possibility that it is the passionate attachment to collective identifications that motivates participation. People must care about an issue and they must also have some hope that at least some progress might be achieved if they participate (Mihai 2014). …”