Naslov
Why the empty signifier is missing?

Autori
Krce-Ivančić, Matko

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Populism and Constructing a People. Ideology and Discourse Analysis International Conference 2017

Mjesto i datum
University of Essex, Colchester, Velika Britanija, 02-03.06.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Laclau ; methodology ; populism ; theory ; universality

Sažetak
During her talk at the conference Socialism, Capitalism and the Alternatives, Mouffe stated that, while struggling for the populist movement to emerge and radical democracy to be established, it seems that we have lost democracy altogether. This paper is focused on understanding why the empty signifier, that would finally structure this anxiously anticipated populist movement, is nonetheless missing in contemporary society. While often overlooked, this question is of the highest importance for populism research as the emergence of empty signifier presents, in Laclau's model of emancipation, a crucial moment in the process of constructing the 'people'. Rather than providing empirical analyses of existing struggles, out of which the empty signifier could at last crystalize, I employ Foucault's analysis of neoliberal subjectivity in order to explore why, at the first place, the empty signifier is missing. The neoliberal subject, in Foucault's words "an entrepreneur of himself", is persistently examining his life in cost-benefit terms through his freedom of choice, thereby blurring the opposition between himself and neoliberal government. If, as I claim, the fundamental message of Foucault's late lectures at the Collège de France is that neoliberalism is above all a form of subjectivity, how can a certain demand become the empty signifier in such a context? Noticing that nowadays ''collectivities are almost always too quickly constructed. And the moment things are not bad, they break'', Spivak argues that we need, above all, an epistemic change that would alter the neoliberal mode of subjectivity and on which effective critical collectivities could be based. Bearing this in mind, is the establishment of political frontier, according to Laclau "the sine qua non of the emergence of the 'people'", today subverted by the emergence of neoliberal subjectivity?

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

Napomena
Ustanova: University of Manchester, Manchester,
Velika Britanija. Ovaj rad podupiru: ‘President’s
Doctoral Scholar Award’ i ‘School of Social
Sciences PhD Studentship’ (dodjeljuje: Sociology,
School of Social Sciences, University of
Manchester), i ‘Economic and Social Sciences
Research Council North West Doctoral Training
Centre Studentship [grant number ES/J500094/1]’.

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