Ernesto Laclau

Our aim has been the exact opposite: to focus on certain discursive categories which, at first sight, appeared to be privileged condensation-points for many aspects of the crisis; and to unravel the possible meaning of a history in the various facets of this multiple refraction.

guiding thread of our analysis has been the transformations in the concept of hegemony, considered as a discursive surface and fundamental nodal point of Marxist political theorization. Our principal conclusion is that behind the concept of ‘hegemony’ lies hidden something more than a type of political relation complementary to the basic categories of Marxist theory.

the expansion and determination of the social logic implicit in the concept of ‘hegemony’ – in a direction that goes far beyond Gramsci – will provide us with an anchorage from which contemporary social struggles are thinkable in their specificity, as well as permitting us to outline a new politics for the Left based upon the project of a radical democracy.