Antagonist politics

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

F*ck May 68, Fight Now: Exploring the Uses of the Radical Past from 1968 to Today

Session 1: History is a Weapon

June 8, 2018

Department of History, University of Liverpool

https://archive.discoversociety.org/2018/09/04/circumnavigating-the-past-foreclosing-the-future-commemoration-of-the-radical-past-in-the-amnesiac-present/

El articulo se propone indagar en la categoria de antagonismo desarrollada en el enfoque posestructuralista, posmarxista y posfundacional de Ernesto Laclau. Se sostiene que dicha nocion opera en tres campos analiticos que en la obra del autor se desplazan e incluso superponen, provocando algunos equivocos en relacion a su estatus y alcance teorico. Estos registros —el ontologico, el ontico y el identitario— dan cuenta de diferentes fenomenos: la institucion del orden social, la multiplicidad de conflictos en la sociedad y la constitucion de las identidades politicas. En este sentido, este articulo contribuye a identificar las potencialidades y limitaciones de la categoria de antagonismo para el analisis politico de las sociedades contemporaneas.

In the face of longstanding philosophical debates on the nature of hatred and an ever-growing interest in the underlying social-psychological function of group-directed or genocidal hatred, the peculiar affective intentionality of hatred is still very little understood. By drawing on resources from classical phenomenology, recent social-scientific research and analytic philosophy of emotions, I shall argue that the affective intentionality of hatred is distinctive in three interrelated ways: (1) it has an overgeneralizing, indeterminate affective focus, which typically leads to a form of collectivization of the target; (2) short of a determinate affective focus, haters derive the indeed extreme affective powers of the attitude not in reaction to any specific features or actions of the targets or from some phenomenological properties of the attitude but, rather, from the commitment to the attitude itself; (3) finally, in sharing this commitment to hate with others, hatred involves a certain negative social dialectics, robustly reinforces itself and becomes entrenched as a shared habitus.

This paper critically explores Carl Schmitt's theory of democracy. I present the emergence of the democratic principle of legitimacy as described by Schmitt, then elaborate on the people as sovereign qua constituent power and present its threefold relationship with the constitution. Later I formulate three lessons to be taken from Schmitt's theory and discuss its importance and implications for democratic theory in terms of the normative and formative principle of democracy, core subject and core mode of democratic politics, and conditions of possibility of constituent democratic politics. In concluding part I discuss the differences between liberal, republican and deliberative model of democracy and Schmitt-inspired theory.

In Pietro Maltese, Danilo Mariscalco, "Vita, politica, rappresentazione. A partire dall'Italian Theory", Ombre Corte, Verona 2016, pp. 179-190.

C’è almeno un segmento della cosiddetta Italian Theory, quello che va dalle prime (con)ricerche sulla informazione valorizzante sino alle più recenti esplorazioni del paradigma bioeconomico o capitalismo cognitivo, che ha alimentato e metabolizzato la prassi politica antagonista. È nota, almeno dopo le genealogie offerte da Roberto Esposito e da Dario Gentili, la specificità conflittuale della differenza italiana, la sua capacità – che ne spiegherebbe, almeno in parte, la fortuna internazionale – di indagare i piani della vita, della storia, della politica e di fornire, contestualmente, una “ontologia dell’attualità”. È altresì riconosciuto, come nel caso di Michael Hardt, o del Negri che ritorna, dopo un ventennio, sul suo Marx oltre Marx, il debito del pensiero radicale italiano nei confronti delle lotte politiche degli anni Sessanta e Settanta. Ciò che si intende focalizzare in questa occasione argomentativa è, in particolare, la collocazione teorico-pratica del movimento del ’77, sul piano specifico delle sue emergenze culturali e comunicative, all’interno del Radical Thought, dunque nel suo rapporto con la lettura già operaista del general intellect marxiano, in quel caso sostanziata dal fecondo incontro con alcune categorie del post-strutturalismo francese e da una rinnovata analisi critica delle esperienze delle avanguardie artistiche del Novecento, e successivamente posta a fondamento delle ipotesi, formulate dal post-operaismo, sui dispositivi di sussunzione biopolitica, e sulle linee di fragilità, del vigente regime di produzione post-fordista.

This article analyzes the emergence and consolidation of political polarization in Venezuela during the so-called Bolivarian Revolution, led by Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro from 1999 to 2018. We also examine the conditions under which polarization in Venezuela became pernicious, and contributed to erosion of democracy. Given the underlying class cleavages that were associated with pro- and anti- Chavista identities, we argue that the central dimension of polarization began with a political-ideological rift around competing concepts of democracy—participatory and representative, the rights that each vision privileged (individual civil and political rights vs. collective social and economic rights), and the interpretation of participatory democracy as a complement or substitute for representative democracy. As a result, the inclusion of representative and participatory models of democracy in the 1999 Bolivarian constitution failed to deepen democracy. Instead, they cam...

El 1 de diciembre de 1997, Lumaco, una pequeña población en el sur de Chile, en la llamada Araucanía, amaneció bajo el humo de tres camiones incendiados. Habían sido quemados por comuneros mapuche. Comunidades mapuche habían realizado una recuperación de territorios ancestrales después de años de reclamos sin solución. Los camiones pertenecían a la empresa forestal Bosques Arauco que, como en casi toda la Araucanía, explota los bosques usurpando y ocupando tierras que los mapuche reivindican como suyas.el diario El Mercurio habló de un nuevo Chiapas en la Araucanía El diario La Tercera se preguntaba: “¿Chiapas chileno?” El gobierno también reaccionó con fuertes declaraciones, considerando la protesta como una acción subversiva, infiltrada por agentes guerrilleros. Año y medio más tarde, se anunciaba la formación de la Coordinadora de Comunidades en Conflicto Arauco Malleco (CAM). Se abría una larga fase de antagonismo e insubordinación por la tierra y la autonomía, que significó una bifurcación en el movimiento mapuche contemporáneo. Inflexión protagonizada de manera central -aunque no exclusiva- por el movimiento de recuperación de tierras ancestrales impulsado por la Coordinadora Arauco Malleco. Este trabajo intenta narrar esa historia y, en especial, comprender, interpretar y aprender de dicha rebeldía.

In this paper, I discuss contemporary readings of Machiavelli (styled ‘radical’) that perceive in his work the foundations for what they conceive as a political ontology — an ontology based on force, potency and conflictuality. I contest this interpretation, both for philological and theoretical reasons. Through readings of Foucault, Deleuze, Esposito, Negri and Abensour (among others), I interrogate the notion of Machiavelli’s ‘realism’, and challenge the traditional articulation between ‘force’ and ‘reality’ with reference to Derrida's writings on force, potency and virtuality. This essay takes aim not only at the fashionable notion of ‘political ontology’, but also at the use that is made of it in allegedly progressive circles within disciplines such as political science and International Relations.

Edited version of published paper presented at 'Is Black and Red Dead?' Conference, Centre for the Study of Social and Global and Justice (CSSGJ) University of Nottingham, 7-8 September, 2009

https://socialhistoryportal.org/news/articles/110943

Resumen Este artículo se pregunta por la identidad política de Podemos, formación que junto a otras ha transformado el sistema de partidos en España. Podemos surgió como partido que rechazaba el eje izquierda-derecha y se definía según la contraposición abajo-arriba. A diferencia de otros análisis, aquí consideramos que esa dicotomía es insuficiente para definir una identidad política, y que hay dos formas de plantearla: la antagonista, de Laclau, y la agonista, de Mouffe. El antagonismo implica una relación de enemistad con el orden político y así su impugnación, mientras el ago-nismo representa una relación adversarial y, por tanto, de regeneración del orden. Considerando esta distinción clave para comprender la identidad política de Podemos, este artículo ofrece un análisis discursivo de la formación morada desde sus inicios hasta octubre de 2016. El objetivo es examinar, con un criterio formal más que de contenido, si para Podemos el orden existente cons-tituye un obstáculo insalvable para realizar sus demandas o, al contrario, representa un terreno fértil para conseguir esos fines. En las conclusiones se argumentará que hacia enero de 2015 la relación antagonista inicial se transformó en otra agonista. La creciente adaptación del discurso de Podemos al orden no debe entenderse como una moderación, sino como una negociación con el sentido sedimentado, la cual no es incompatible con la búsqueda de una nueva hegemonía. Abstract This article explores the political identity of Podemos which, along with other political forces, has transformed the party system in Spain. Podemos emerged as a party that rejected the 1. Agradezco los comentarios de los evaluadores anónimos. He tratado este tema en otros trabajos que abarcan un período menor e incluían otros problemas: Franzé (2015, 2016).

Özet
Popülizm, son on yıllarda gerek ekonomik gerekse politik analizlerde en fazla referans verilen, fakat anlamsal olarak neyi karşıladığı bir o kadar tartışmalı olan kavramlardan biridir. Genel olarak siyasetin ve özel olarak liberal demok-rasinin içine düştüğü temsil krizi ve ekonomik krizler ile bu krizlerin berabe-rinde getirdiği yapısal dönüşümler, popülizme olan yönelimi güçlendirmiştir. Demokrasinin bir tür gölgesine dönüşen popülizm, önemli ölçüde demokrasi ve liberalizm arasındaki gerilimlerden beslenmektedir.
Bu çalışmada popülizm, iktidarı elde etmek veya mevcut iktidarını korumak isteyen siyasi aktörlerin kitleleri etkilemek adına kullandıkları bir söylem şekli olarak ele alınmış ve Türkiye siyasetine nasıl yansıdığı incelenmiştir. Her siyasi hareketin doğasında var olduğu iddiasından hareketle popülizm, hem ikti-dar/muhalefet temelinde, hem de sağ/sol eksende değerlendirilmiştir. Bu amaçla Türkiye sağını temsil eden iktidar partisi AKP’nin (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) adayı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ile Türkiye solunu temsil eden ana muha-lefet partisi CHP’nin (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) adayı Muharrem İnce’nin 24 Haziran Cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimleri sürecinde yaptıkları konuşmalar Essex Okulu Söylem Analizi yöntemiyle incelemiştir.

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POPULISM – DEMOCRACY in TURKEY: AN EVALUATION ON 24th JUNE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Abstract
Populism is one of the most referenced concepts in both economic and polit-ical analysis in the past decades but what is semantically controversial. The representation crisis and economic crises, in which politics in general and lib-eral democracy in particular, and the structural transformations brought along with these crises strengthened the tendency towards populism. Popu-lism, which has turned into a kind of shadow of democracy, is fed by the ten-sions between democracy and liberalism to a great extent.
In this study, Populism was tackled as a form of discourse which enables to political actors to want to obtain power or protect the existing power by mo-bilising masses and the influence on Turkish politics was analysed. Based on the claim that every political movement is inherent, populism has been eval-uated both on the basis of power / opposition and on the right / left axis. For this purpose, speeches during 24th June presidential election that made by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who was the candidate of the ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party) that is representing the Turkey’s right-wing political axis and Muharrem İnce who was the candidate of the opposition party CHP (Republican People’s Party) that is representing the Turkey’s left-wing politi-cal axis, was examined by using Essex School Discourse Analysis method.

Cuando pensamos en la originalidad de la teoría populista desarrollada por Ernesto Laclau solemos centrarnos en el papel de la hegemonía, el antagonismo y la contingencia radical. Incluso llegamos a percibir que en el interior de su teoría habita una original comprensión de la universalidad dada en un terreno indecidible y de conflictividad radical. Se han explorado con suficiente rigor los supuestos que hay detrás de esta apuesta laclausiana, al punto de considerarse una de las pocas teorías contemporáneas capaces de articular en una misma estrategia teórica la certeza del posfundacionalismo (Marchart, 2009) -el fundamento como ausencia y diferencia-y la apuesta por la universalidad -la posibilidad de trascender las meras particularidades diferenciales-. Sin embargo, me parece que no se ha desarrollado de la misma manera la cuestión de la negatividad, como si esta tuviera un papel secundario dentro de su proyecto. Si prestamos atención a su recorrido intelectual, descubrimos que la negatividad ha sido un tema recurrente en sus escritos.

ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ Η παρούσα εισήγηση αποτελεί μια προσπάθεια σκιαγράφησης των διαφορετικών/αντιθετικών αναγνώσεων της κοινωνικοπολιτικής πραγματικότητας τόσο από τη μεταπολιτευτική εξουσία της καθεστηκυίας πολιτικής σκηνής (potestas) όσο και από την ανταγωνιστική προς αυτήν κινηματική πρακτική, κυρίως του αναρχικού/αντιεξουσιαστικού (α/α) χώρου (potentia). Δεδομένου ότι η σκιαγράφηση αυτή αφορά κυρίως τον 21 ο αιώνα, επικεντρώνεται στην εξέγερση του Δεκέμβρη 2008 και στο πώς οι κινηματικές πρακτικές των εξεγερμένων απομυθοποίησαν την «αλήθεια» της αστικής δημοκρατίας αλλά και άλλων κοινωνικοπολιτικών αξιών σύμφυτων με αυτήν. This paper is an effort to sketch the different/opposing readings of the social-political reality, both by the metapoliteftiki power of the mainstream political scene (potestas) and the antagonist movement practices, especially those of the anarchist/antiauthoritarian (a/a) space (potentia). Given that this sketch mainly refers to the 21 st century, it focuses on the December 2008 revolt and on how the movement practices of the insurgents disillusioned the "truth" of bourgeois democracy as well as the other social-political values implicit to it.

‘What I miss the most’, I hear my friend saying from across our table, ‘is the ability we once had to imagine. I feel this has been taken away from us, you know?’ It is an unusually cold Athenian morning in the early winter of 2011, two-and-a-half years from the moment when the IMF, the EU and the ECB came to the rescue of the rapidly faltering Greek economy. Ever since, the landscape surrounding us has kept changing beyond recognition. Excruciating austerity measures, a seething political scene and anger mingled with despair on the everyday level now constitute a reality mostly alien to what any of us would have been used to only a few years ago. This fluidity, one could be forgiven for expecting, should have allowed people’s imagination to run wild. And yet more and more people seem to find themselves in my friend’s position, with the militant optimism during and after the December 2008 revolt seemingly giving way to the cold realisation of an unprecedented series of consecutive dead-ends. Why is this happening?

Notes for Panel 16: Great Refusals: Refusing One Dimensionality Today

The Dialectics of Liberation in an Age of Neoliberal Capitalism
International Herbert Marcuse Society

Seventh Biennial Conference, 26-28 October 2017, York University

https://marcuseconference.wordpress.com/

The well-known opioid agonists, oxycodone and oxymorphone, and the opioid antagonists, naloxone and naltrexone, are commonly used clinical agents and research tools in the opioid field. They belong to the class of morphinan-6-ones, and produce their pharmacological effects by interacting with opioid receptors, i.e. mu (MOR), delta (DOR) and kappa (KOR). The search for potent agonists and antagonists has continuously engaged the interest of pharmaceutical research, aiming for the identification of safer therapeutic agents or discovery of opioids with novel therapeutic properties and with lesser unwanted side effects. The chemically highly versatile carbonyl group in position 6 of mophinan-6-ones permits functionalization and modification leading to numerous opioid ligands. We have focused on representative examples of various derivatives and interesting approaches for the development of structurally distinct molecules with substitution at C6 (e.g. 6-methylene, 6-hydroxy, 6-amido, bifunctional ligands), as preclinically and clinically valuable opioids. In this work, the development of 6-amino and 6-guanidino substituted 14-alkoxymorphinans, including the synthesis and pharmacological investigations is presented. The new approach represented by the introduction of amino and guanidino groups into position 6 of the morphinan skeleton of 14-O-methyloxymorphone, led to compounds with high efficacy, MOR affinity and selectivity, which act as potent antinociceptive agents. Altogether, as a consequence of target drug design and synthetic efforts in the field of morphinan-6-ones, we achieve a better understanding of the function of the opioid system, and such efforts may open new avenues for further investigations.

Garland, C. (2014) ‘As Barriers Fall, Contingency Becomes Possibility: Protest Resisting and Escaping Containment and Categorization’, Part II Identity, Embodiment and Categorisation in Eds. Lamond, I. and Spracklen, K. 'Protests as Events: Politics, Activism and Leisure (London: Rowman & Littlefield International) Hardback ISBN/9781783480760 Paperback ISBN/978-1-78348-077-7 eBook ISBN/978-1-78348-078-4 

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783480760

This chapter is a reflection of the filmmakers-academics, who run a community film festival in London, on the process of conducting film classes in the local urban environment and the challenges emerging from the confrontation between different (and openly antagonistic) social and cultural values of the local residents and the framework of the funded creative practice.