Chantal Mouffe (; born 17 June 1943) is a Belgian

political theorist A political theorist is someone who engages in constructing or evaluating political theory, including political philosophy. Theorists may be Academia, academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized b ...

, formerly teaching at

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Polyte ...

. She is best known for her contribution to the development—jointly with

Ernesto Laclau Ernesto Laclau (; 6 October 1935 – 13 April 2014) was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher. He is often described as an 'inventor' of post-Marxist political theory. He is well known for his collaborations with his long-term partner ...

, with whom she co-authored her most frequently cited publication ''

Hegemony and Socialist Strategy ''Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics'' is a 1985 work of political theory in the post-Marxist tradition by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Developing several sharp divergences from the tenets of canonical M ...

''—of the so-called Essex School of discourse analysis, a type of post-Marxist political inquiry drawing on

Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , , ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a fou ...

post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

and theories of identity, and redefining Leftist politics in terms of radical democracy. She is also the author of influential works on

agonistic An agonist is a chemical that activates a receptor to produce a biological response. Receptors are cellular proteins whose activation causes the cell to modify what it is currently doing. In contrast, an antagonist blocks the action of the agon ...

political theory, including ''Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically'' and ''The Democratic Paradox''. Her most recent book is ''For a Left Populism'', published in 2018.

Education

Chantal Mouffe studied at the Universities of Leuven,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

and has worked in many universities throughout the world (in Europe, North America and Latin America). She has also held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell,

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

and the CNRS (Paris). During 1989–1995, she served as Programme Director at the

Collège international de philosophie The Collège international de philosophie (Ciph), located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associ ...

in Paris. She currently holds a professorship at the Department of Politics and International Relations,

in the United Kingdom, where she directs the Centre for the Study of Democracy.

Work

A prominent critic of deliberative democracy (especially in its Rawlsian and Habermasian versions), she is also known for her use of the work of

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as ...

, mainly the concept of "the political", in proposing a radicalization of modern democracy—what she calls "agonistic pluralism". She has developed an interest in highlighting the radical potential of artistic practices. Mouffe's ''Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically'' (2013) has been criticised by Timothy Laurie for its strong focus on State institutions, noting that Mouffe's "professed enthusiasm for (some) non-Western Islamist movements is solely conditional upon their assumption of State instruments".

Publications

* (ed.) ''Gramsci and Marxist Theory''. London – Boston: Routledge / Kegan Paul, 1979. * (with

) ''Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics''. London – New York: Verso, 1985. * (ed.) ''Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community''. London – New York: Verso, 1992. *''The Return of the Political''. London – New York: Verso, 1993. *''Le politique et ses enjeux. Pour une démocratie plurielle''. Paris: La Découverte/MAUSS, 1994. * (ed.) ''Deconstruction and Pragmatism''. London – New York: Routledge, 1996. * (ed.) ''The Challenge of Carl Schmitt''. London – New York: Verso, 1999. *'' The Democratic Paradox''. London – New York: Verso, 2000. * (ed.) ''Feministische Perspektiven''. Wien: Turia + Kant, 2001. * (ed.) ''The legacy of Wittgenstein: Pragmatism or Deconstruction''. Frankfurt am Main – New York: Peter Lang, 2001. *''On the Political''. Abingdon – New York: Routledge, 2005. * ''Hegemony, Radical Democracy, and the Political'', edited by James Martin, London: Routledge, 2013. * ''Agonistics: Thinking The World Politically''. London – New York: Verso, 2013. * Mouffe C, 1995 ‘Post-marxism: democracy and identity’, Environment and Planning D vol.13 pp. 259–266 ML: P305 E30. * (in conversation with Íñigo Errejón) ''Podemos: In the Name of the People'' (trans. Sirio Canos), London:

Lawrence & Wishart Lawrence & Wishart is a British publishing company formerly associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was formed in 1936, through the merger of Martin Lawrence, the Communist Party's press, and Wishart Ltd, a family-owned Left-wing ...

, 2016. *''For a Left Populism''. London – New York: Verso, 2018.

Education

Work

Publications

See also

References

Further reading