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 academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized by their ...

, formerly teaching at University of Westminster. She is best known for her contribution to the development—jointly with Ernesto Laclau, with whom she co-authored her most frequently cited publication '' Hegemony and Socialist Strategy''—of the so-called

Essex School of discourse analysis The Essex School of discourse analysis, or simply 'The Essex School', refers to a type of scholarship founded on the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. It focuses predominantly on the political discourses of late modernity utilising disco ...

, a type of post-Marxist political inquiry drawing on Gramsci,

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 ago ...

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 Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

, Paris 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 Gr ...

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

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

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 nin ...

and the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

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

Work

A prominent critic of

deliberative democracy Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional de ...

(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 a ...

, 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 Ernesto Laclau) ''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 Íñigo Errejón Galván (; born 14 December 1983) is a Spanish political scientist and politician, serving as member of the 14th Congress of Deputies. Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science, he was the secretary for policy and strategy and ...

) ''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