ABSTRACT
Rather than the esoteric writings of Baudrillard and Lyotard and the born-again Marxism of Jameson, Laclau and Mouffe provide a much more practical and pragmatic orientated engagement with the postmodern. Like Jameson they attempt to rethink left-of-centre politics in ‘new times’ but direct their efforts not necessarily to saving Marxism but to providing a practical alternative to the right-wing hegemony that has been in the ascendancy throughout the west over the past two decades. It is this hegemonic growth that seems to have mirrored, influenced and built on the postmodern concerns with individualism and fragmentation. For Laclau and Mouffe, such aspects are not naturally allied with the right; they too have a place in a renewed left-wing alternative.
