Hegemony, Discourse, and Political Strategy

Abstract

Hegemony, Discourse, and Political Strategy revisits a question that has long fascinated socialists, progressives, democrats, Greens, and Marxists – how do left-wing forces win at politics? Thirty-five years ago, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe tackled this puzzle in ground-breaking fashion, by drawing on a signature blend of linguistics, Marxist theory, and poststructuralism that came to be known as post-Marxist Discourse Theory (PDT). This book takes up the legacy of Laclau and Mouffe, and elaborates PDT into a full-fledged theory of political strategy for the first time. It argues that post-Marxism provides the foundations for a form of discourse analysis that can explain how political strategies play out as well as why they fail or succeed. Its empirical potential to illuminate the dynamics of hegemonic struggles is demonstrated through a case study focusing on the contestation and politicization of EU trade policy in the European Parliament.

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