This paper explores the legacy of Ernesto Laclau, as theorist of politics of meaning. Laclau focused on rhetoric, but contrasted to historians of ideas or conceptual historians, literary theorists or linguists, communication or psychoanalysts, he emphasised the political nature of discursive operations. He questioned the groundings others saw as fixed, whether dealing with on democracy or hegemony, political science or Marxist theory. Instead of assuming a common ground, he revealed operations on which a common ground had been established. Instead transformation of a concept, he showed the need to look at a transformation of a whole discursive field.
Meanings, for Laclau, were relational and contingent, even though in politics they appear as fixed and eternal. Even the paradox behind his political theory lies in the rhetorical ontology. The theorist must insist on the openness of the discursive field, even though in politics one focuses on the (reestablishement of) closure.
