disclaimer: i don't read much political theory, so take my review with a grain of salt. BUT i found mouffe's analysis insightful - she gets right to the point of why consensus-based "third way" politics failed, and it's hitting home a little too hard right now (biden-harris :/).
politics is about power, and claims to power inevitably comes into conflict. there's no way to find a perfect compromise that doesn't leave people out; in fact, the very nature of liberal democracy requires that some population - usually non-citizens - are excluded from the "universal" rights that liberalism offers.
civic procedure, too, is necessarily exclusive: by making voting (or town halls, protests, etc.) the official mechanism of change, you're already upholding one epistemology over another. a lot of western political philosophers start with the assumption that liberal democracy is the "end of history" and must be defended, when it's always been just one set of values and practices among many.
rather than giving up on democracy, mouffe says we should embrace "agonistic democracy." agonism accepts ideological conflict as natural and productive, but focuses on transforming conflict into agreed-upon channels (e.g. party politics) instead of pushing radical politics out, which engenders further violence. she insists that both the content of politics as well as its official procedures should always be up for legitimate debate. finally, open deliberation does not lead us toward an objectively optimal outcome, but a temporary and uncertain decision.
the essays can get a little repetitive at times, but honestly it helped me. mouffe is also good at giving explainers on basic positions/debates in political philosophy, like contextualism vs. universalism, Rawls vs. Habermas, etc.
NOTE: You can find my Kindle highlights for this book on the Notion page here. I used Readwise to sync and manage my highlights.
(aug 11, 2020)
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