Tensions and Confluences between the Works of Jacques Rancière and Ernesto Laclau

Abstract

This paper explores the similarities and differences that exist between the political approaches of Jacques Rancière and Ernesto Laclau, respectively. In particular, the areas analysed include their postulation of an antagonistic or conflictive figure at the centre of their political reflections, their understanding of the political as constitutive of social objectivity, and their conception of a political subject constituted through a co-implication between the particular and the universal. Throughout the theoretical itinerary proposed, special attention is paid to those aspects where there are discrepancies between their approaches. It is argued that by considering them together a solution may be provided to some of the problems identified in each of their approaches.