ABSTRACT
This chapter compares conceptions of the liberal democrat with those that inform the radical democrat, detailing their contrasting formulations of subjectivity, identity, agency and political power. It focuses on post-foundational – primarily, in the instance, poststructuralist and feminist – challenges to conventional understandings of subjectivity, autonomy, agency and political struggle. Poststructuralist conceptions of the process of subject formation tend to further problematize this psychoanalytic conception of a normative stable subject position. Post-foundational conceptions of subjectivity also abound in the works of many second-wave feminists, particularly in the works of women of colour who have drawn attention to their multiple sources of identity and subjectivity. Attention, for instance, needs to be constantly given by the radical democrat to avoiding the trap of totalizing and reifying concepts of 'identity', 'community', 'culture' and 'tradition', as well as to looking out for attempts at subversion.
