Applying Principles of Agonistic Politics to Institutional Design

Given agonists’ stress on a political ethos conducive to contestation, agonistic democracy’s often criticized 'institutional deficit' might appear as just the other side of the coin: As agonistic democracy’s purpose is contestation of the existing rules it does not develop suggestions for designing institutions but, rather, expects institutions to be reshaped in the course of contestation. I argue that agonistic democratic theories indeed offer distinct and fruitful perspectives for institutional design. First, I suggest a conceptual approach that enables overcoming the 'institutional deficit'. The basic idea here is that models of agonistic democratic politics do not suggest concrete institutions but normative principles displaying requirements for institutions to realize in order to be compatible with agonistic democracy. Second, I examine three models of agonistic democratic politics (Mouffe’s, Connolly’s, Tully’s), depict their normative principles and show how applying these principles in evaluating institutions enables meaningful and distinct perspectives on requirements for modifications.