In Defense of Agonism: Liberalism’s Shortfalls and the Prospects for Radical Democratic Politics

Chantal Mouffe (2018; 2020) has described the contemporary conjuncture as a “populist moment” within a post-democratic age, characterized by various political earthquakes which, according to Donatella della Porta (2017; 2020), are a byproduct of late neoliberalism which has led to the crises of legitimacy and stability of liberal democracy. This is illuminated by outbreaks of protests and rebellions which highlight a growing friction between the public’s collective democratic demands and the detachment of democratic institutions. Such tensions breed a tendency to blame the forces of populism for fueling and taking advantage of the crisis (cf. Fukuyama, 2018; Galston, 2018). In this paper, I consider how the dismissal and condemnation of populism, its politics of resentment as well as its concomitant demands seem to reaffirm the authority of a discredited and structurally flawed liberal order in need of radical overhaul. Building on Mouffe’s thesis of seeing the populist moment as a prospect for creating a “new political frontier” to accommodate demands for better civic participation leading to a more meaningful and enhanced agonistic democracy, I argue for a more critical and conscientious observation of the current era. Inferring from della Porta’s contentions, I underscore alternative approaches and “democratic innovations” employed by a mobilized citizenry and civil society, and also discuss potential challenges particularly the hazards of institutionalizing these practices which may impair their radical essence. In conclusion, I emphasize that such transformative experiments and reformist politics are nonetheless crucial to contesting and gaining state power as well as delivering progressive change.