ABSTRACT
The creation of emotional and affective identities and their importance for movement and party formation is an acknowledged research route, but how this affects political subjectivity remains under-theorized. Deliberative democracy has, since the works of Jurgen Habermas, become one of the most well-known and applied theories of democracy. The chapter describes at theories different from rational, deliberative forms of democracy, and instead focuses on disagreement, contention, and dissensus. It considers Habermas’ democratic theory. One of the crucial tenets of Habermas’ theory is the assumption of the rational individual and her capability of rational deliberation, in order to produce what Habermas calls ‘discursive validity claims’. The chapter deals with a turn to theory which does allow for an affective take on political subjectivity. Habermas argues that by focusing more on the methods than the content, communicative action enables consensus between radically different views, and can therefore create a political subject that is more inclusive, but at the same time unified.
