Populist Rupture and Discourse

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Populist Rupture and Discourse Ernesto Laclau

I would like in the first place to mention two theoretical presuppositions on which my later analysis will be based.' The first concerns the theoretical status of the discursive, the second the specificity of the notion of antagon­ ism. By 'discursive' I do not mean that which refers to 'text' nar�owly �e­ fined but to the ensemble of the phenomena in and through which social prod�ction of meaning takes place, an ensemble which constitutes a society as such. The discursive is not, therefore, being conceived as a level nor even as a dimension of the social, but rather as being co-extensive with the social as such. This means that the discursive does not constitute a superstructure (since it is the very condition of all social practice) or, more precisely, �hat all social practice constitutes itself as such insofar as it produces meamng. Because there is nothing specifically social which is constituted outside the discursive it is clear that the non-discursive is not opposed to the discursive as if it w�re a matter of two separate levels. History and society are an in­ finite text. This perspective obliges us to clarify certain points. First of all, to affirm the identity between society and discourse does not entail a 'super­ structural' conception as opposed to an 'infrastructural' one because the point is precisely to deny that the discursive and the ideological a�e super­ structures. Economic practice itself should thus be considered as discourse. To affirm the priority of the discursive implies proposing a theoretical �er� spective in the analysis of society as a whole: it does not involve an a P:W:l commitment to any theoretical position on the articulation of levels w1thm that society. The second point of clarification concerns the s�bject �f dis­ course. This is not the transcendental subject, of course, but 1s constituted as difference within the discourse in question. In this sense, the consideration of the social as discourse is incompatible with any idealist outlook whatsoever and involves a theory of the production of subjects within the social produc­ tion of meaning. Thirdly, it is clear that if every discourse has speci�c c� n­ ditions of production, these conditions, even when the! have fixe� mstit�­ tional characteristics should be considered as other discourses. Fmally, if every social practice' is production of � eaning, and if every pro�uction of meaning is production of a system of differences, then the meanmg of any discursive intervention should be considered as difference vis-a-vis its con­ ditions of production and reception. Antagonism Ernesto Laclau, "Populist Rupture and Discourse," Screen Education 34 (Spring 1980).

This last point leads us to the second theoretical presupposition I ment�oned, the one that relates to the concept of antagonism. If every product10n of meaning is production of differences, what does it mean to produce differ1 This article is a translation of a paper delivered to a symposium. on 'Text and Institution' organised by the Departments of Literary Studies � nd rh1losophy at the University of Quebec, Montreal in October 1979. The translation 1s by Jim Grealy.

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