From a Politics of Presence to a Politics of Becoming: Disidentification as Radical Democratic Practice

The democratic paradox as discussed in Chantal Mouffe’s work positions the democratic core values of freedom and equality in an unresolvably agonistic relationship. This paper endeavours to rethink the democratic paradox to afford a radical democratic politics that advances both freedom and equality. Engaging with the question of identity and marginalization in participatory processes, it starts from feminist debates in democratic theory that promote a politics of presence. The politics of presence advances inclusion of marginalized groups in society through their physical presence in various sites of democratic engagement such as parliaments, citizens’ assemblies, and social movement organizations. Their physical bodies function as visible sites of political assertion. In the light of the democratic paradox, the politics of presence advances equality, but it curtails the freedom of individual self-expression. To tackle this problem, the paper develops the concept of a politics of becoming by drawing on the work of radical democratic theorists such as Jacques Rancière, Sheldon Wolin, and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. These theories of disidentification and subjectivization are enriched with debates in queer and gender studies, particularly the work of Judith Butler, conceptualizing identity in terms of performativity and masquerade. Exploring possibilities of discursive resignification and the disruption of continuous identity performances in the public sphere allows for the advancement of freedom that does not undermine equality and thus reconfigures the democratic paradox.