04 A New Fascism? – Chantal Mouffe

Symposium: A New Fascism?
Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Chantal Mouffe, G. M. Tamás
17 December 2016, Fridericianum

Chantal Mouffe – The Populist Moment

In order to deal with the crisis that liberal democratic societies are currently facing it is very important to grasp the nature of the present challenge and that this is prevented by relying on traditional categories like “fascism” or even “extreme right.” They lead generally to an approach based on moral condemnation that does not provide an adequate strategy to envisage the kind of political answer needed to oppose the development of those right-wing populist parties. Instead of demonizing the popular sectors who vote for those parties, it is necessary to understand what has brought them to desert the social democratic parties and what is the responsibility of those parties in the rise of right- wing populism.

Chantal Mouffe is Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London. She has taught and researched in many universities in Europe, North America, and South America and she is a corresponding member of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. She is the editor of "Gramsci and Marxist Theory" (1979), "Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community" (1992), "Deconstruction and Pragmatism" (1996) and "The Challenge of Carl Schmitt" (1999); the co-author with "Ernesto Laclau of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics" (1985) and the author of "The Return of the Political" (1993), "The Democratic Paradox" (2000), "On the Political" (2005) and "Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically" (2013).