Laclau and Mouffe - Discourse Theory - Hegemony, Antagonism and Dislocation

In this video I present you Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory. Discourse theory questions existing knowledge regimes and power structures. It is a radical deconstruction of the neutrality of our social reality. The theory is very complex I hope you will enjoy it. Laclau and Mouffe's main work is called 'Hegemony and Socialist Strategy' and was published in 1985. It is mainly on this work that the content of the video is based. These are the chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:57 Discourse and Social Reality
08:15 Logic of Discourse: Equivalence and Difference
12:15 Antagonism
15:55 Hegemony
22:08 Dislocation
If you want to read more, I recommend:
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2014). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. Verso Trade.
Jørgensen, M. W., & Phillips, L. J. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. Sage.
Stengel, F. A., & Nabers, D. (2019). Symposium: The Contribution of Laclau’s Discourse Theory to International Relations and International Political Economy Introduction.
Jacobs, T. (2018). The dislocated universe of Laclau and Mouffe: An introduction to post-structuralist discourse theory. Critical Review, 30(3-4), 294-315.
Nabers, D. (2015). Dislocation. In A Poststructuralist Discourse Theory of Global Politics (pp. 151-174). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

[@miguelsegura6569]

Thank you very much for your work! I would say it could help to the explanation if you put one or two particular cases for each concept that you present, in order to link the abstract ideas with the general experience of the audience, as a general rule of thumb to make the contents easier to understand. Justus Hartnack for instance does this (almost) the whole time in his History of philosophy.

[@Sylvanranger]

Hey just wanted to say thanks for this video as you have straddled the need for succinctness and the need for detail brilliantly; other videos on this text either oversimplify or leave you as perplexed as you were to begin with haha. I found this a difficult text and thinking back on the key concepts after having watched your video I found it looked a little clearer.

[@DanBaftFarsi]

your videos are amazing! I have read lots of texts on the subjects but your videos were the most helpful! thank you

[@marcotigno2902]

Thank you so much. This is helping me in understanding my Theoretical Framework.

[@imanorangeable]

This is such a great contribution to discourse (hehe). Thank you so much.

[@yinanguo7046]

You are super helpful! This topic is soooooo hard for me. Try my best to catch up with you. However, Totally lost when you start the antagonism part. It's definitely not your fault! Without you, I would have given up after swearing the professor for assigning us a paper that even he can't understand. Now I know someone can understand this discourse theory! How about adding some examples to your paper?

[@lawrencecusipag6874]

Thank you for this video

[@tonyharding4794]

Wonderful channel.

[@MasBeauty]

Thank you so much for this explanation it really helped me to get though HSS. What are your thoughts on Mouffe being labelled as a relativist?

[@Harry-lq2jz]

But (!) I really liked your linking of "causation" to "determination"... I didn't really think of causation like that although probably I should have come across it by now... Anyway this insight is very useful for me and so I thank you for it! Keep up the good work! ;-)))

[@lanafared4372]

Hey, could you make a video on how to apply this theory? I mean what perspective does this open, how I can work with it?

[@politicaltheoryandcontempo4379]

Hey, thank you for the question. I will try to give an answer to that in my next video. In general the discourse theory I introduce is more than a theory it is rather an analytical perspective that broadens the approach.

[@masakoseptianingrumo2370]

Hi there, I am currently writing a research using Laclau’s discourse theory. I have several questions and are you open to discussion through emails? Thank you!

[@politicaltheoryandcontempo4379]

yes sure, when you send me your email I will write you

[@Harry-lq2jz]

Hi, you introduce new concepts suddenly and all the time without really giving us no definitions or anything to make sense of them, e.g. "signifiers", "field of overdetermination", etc. Or, to put it another way, you haven't "articulated" those "elements" properly! :D (Note: articulation is simply the linking of a concept to a new discursive frame so that the understanding of the concept is altered - think of the concept "migration" which has largely been articulated within "the economy" discourse which might mean "migrants" are those who steals native population's jobs - but now imagine "migration" is suddenly began articulated within another, "international security" discourse - then the meaning of "migrants" changes from job thieves to threat to national security, etc. - THINK SIMPLE!!!) This might be understandable since you appear to just take the outline of Laclau and Mouffe's 1985 book and use that to guide your view on their theory but my advice for you is to start from what Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory boils right down to... which is that the chain of signifiers can potentially be infinitely expanded. So explain these terms, why Laclau and Mouffe see the chain like that, and then what Laclau and Mouffe considers political subjects do because of it, etc. So, ""KEEP THINGS SIMPLE""!!! If not, you get confused and make others confused, too! ;-)

[@politicaltheoryandcontempo4379]

Hey thanks for your comment. It is not easy to find the middle way. I wanted to mention all the important key words from the theory and didn't want to simplify to really help the people who are already a bit into that anyway. If not I would have the feeling to not encompass the complexity of the theory. Thanks also for your definition of articulation I said it is the putting into relation but when reading the books it could be helpful to know that they talk about moments and elements. I perceived the video as a help to extract the main concepts to do a bit of research afterwards or to follow up with own thoughts.

[@Harry-lq2jz]

@@politicaltheoryandcontempo4379 Ahh, that's very interesting! So this video is not a final product of your full on prior research on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory but merely a step towards it! Cool! That makes a lot more sense! But, if that were the case, then it would have helped us viewers if you said that in the very beginning of the video - something like "I am researching into Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory and that I hope you the audience too will find this video useful in exploring their theory with me" - or something like that... You are charming but that will make the video even more charming, if you know what I mean... :D Anyways... "Elements" are simply yet unarticulated "difference" while "moments", like discourses, are already well sedimented (= repeatedly articulated or objectified or universalised) difference. Of course, in explaining the difference between elements and moments, it is critical that you highlight in your video that "moments" are those elements that are subject to a constant (i) discursive (ii) articulation where (i) the "discursive" here means that even those well-articulated ("structured") moments have no meaning beyond the discursive framework in which they are articulated and (ii) "articulation" here means, by linking an element within a broader discursive frame "modifies" its meaning (as I explained previously) or, to put it differently, articulation involves the moment of "undecidability" without which its meaning will simply be a product of "reproduction", not (social/discursive) "construction" (or "unfolding"). In turn, "elements" are not as constantly articulated/sedimented as "moments" so that its articulation appears more "radical" and "contingent" and "temporary" (!!) than "structured" where the difference between radical (or "agentic") and structured (or "institutionalised") articulation is merely a matter of repetition: the more repetitively an element is articulated, the more structured/objective/universal and thus "moment-like" qualities it acquires, i.e. universalised as more "real", "true", and "factual" than "false", "strange", or merely "theoretical" (N.B. this must be so especially given Laclau and Mouffe's radical materialism - from this perspective, what's so insightful here is that a discourse / (discursive) structure or institution / chain of signifiers refers both to (representations of) physical objects and discursive / theoretical elements / concepts / metaphors!, e.g. think how we consider "institutions" to refer both to the material practice and discursive normative ideals, rules and norms :D). But if the distinction between elements and moments is thus itself contingent, temporary, and ultimately "undecidable" (or the "impossibility" of founding this distinction on a positivist / ontic notion of a "foundation" or an "Abgrund" - I digress here but this point is really important when you start comparing Laclau/Mouffe and Foucault (1974) who called himself a positivist... :D) , then there is always already a possibility of "structural" change - which is of course, as (post-)Marxists, what Laclau and Mouffe are most interested in as opposed to those "philosophers" who, according to Karl Marx (1888), "have only interpreted the world in various ways" while ignoring the fact that "the point is to change it". So, you see, without explaining those above things first, and in a clearly articulated and ordered manner, your explanation about how articulation is "contingent" and "temporary" might appear so suddenly introduced that the audience might find your video confusing, IMHO.... Anyways, these are just my suggestions. KEEP THINKING SIMPLE!!! :)))