ABSTRACT
Theories of democratic agonism offer a new understanding of the political along with a novel vision of democracy. Emerging from a, broadly defined, poststructuralist ontology while inspired by modern receptions of the ancient Greek legacy of the agōn, they elevate plurality, contest and antagonism, above and against the paradigmatic standing in contemporary political thought of rational deliberation, procedural neutrality and public consensus.1 Politics, defined agonistically, is a dynamic mobile field of power relations animated by disputes and struggles that forge identities, produce zones of exclusion and codify new norms and practices of inclusion. Undoubtedly, this rediscovery of agonism has been decisive for redirecting attention from agreement to conflict, from rationality to affects, from the singular to the multiple and from essences to contingency.
