ABSTRACT
This chapter provides context to evaluate institutions appropriate to agonistic democracy by developing a comprehensive typology of agonistic democratic theories. This typology serves two purposes. First, it clarifies the status of agonistic democracy as a theoretical project. A comprehensive classification of theoretical approaches helps illustrate the range of understandings in the literature. Second, this analysis helps to identify which approaches are better suited to articulate institutional models and what range of institutional understandings are appropriate to an agonistic approach. Oppositional agonists argue that democracy is not and cannot be a form of state politics. For expressive agonism, democracy entails both a realm of public engagement between different perspectives expected to share little or no common ground, and a commitment to enabling challenges to its own terms of existence. Constitutional and responsive agonists propose that the appropriate response to radical pluralism is the development of an ethos of respect and reciprocity amongst citizens who do not share deep comprehensive commitments.
