Patočka Debate 2019: Which Future for Democracy in a Post-political Age with Chantal Mouffe

The lecture will analyze the current conjuncture in Western liberal democracies and the reasons for the increasing success of right-wing populist movements. It will elaborate the thesis that the only way to fight against those movements is to develop left populist alternatives. Specifically, it shall be argued that it is a lack of understanding for the dynamics of politics and the role of affects in the formation of collective identities that explains the failure of social democratic parties in offering an appropriate answer to the right-wing populist challenge.

Chantal Mouffe is Visiting Fellow at IWM and professor of Political Theory at the University of Westminster in London, where she is also the module leader of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD). She has taught at many universities in Europe, North America and Latin America, and has held research positions at Harvard, Cornell, the University of California, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.