A postsecular agonism? Religion and metaphysics in Chantal Mouffe

Abstract

This article examines the place of religion and metaphysics in the agonistic political theory of Chantal Mouffe. The first section introduces Mouffe’s agonistic project and points to its normative postsecular implications. The second section presents her key engagements with religion and shows a development in her thought from a more restrictive secularist model toward a more open approach to religion in the public sphere. I suggest that an uncritical adoption of a modern view of religion is a hindrance to her account and in tension with her agonistic assumptions. In the final section I examine how Mouffe deals with the limits of pluralism and religious interventions in politics and argue that her agonistic theory has insufficiently recognized the inescapability of faith and metaphysics in political theorizing. I suggest that adopting a more postsecular agonism would promote rather than squash pluralism and increase the terrain of political contestation and democratic possibilities.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful feedback, as well as participants of the Politics and Religion group of the Research Conference in Theology and Religion for comments made on an earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 From the Greek agon, meaning “struggle” or “conflict”.

2 Beckford, “SSSR Presidential Address,” 1–19.

3 The phenomenon is described in e.g., Casanova, Public Religions.

4 Bruce, Secularization; Berger, Desecularization of the World.

5 The concept is extensively discussed, among other places, in Rawls, Political Liberalism.

6 For engagements with Mouffe’s theory, see Fish, The Trouble with Principle, 253ff; Mathewes, “Faith, Hope and Agony;” Johnson, Theology, Political Theory, 89ff. For engagements with and an application of Mouffe’s theory and religion, see Gustafsson Lundberg, “Christianity in Post-Christian Context;” Ezzati and Bivand Erdal, “Have to Agree?”. For a broader discussion of radical democracy and metaphysics/ontology, see e.g., Thomassen and Tønder, Radical Democracy.

7 Mouffe and Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.

8 Ibid., xi. For more on Mouffe and Lauclau’s ontology, see Hansen, “Ontology of Radical Negativity.”

9 Mouffe and Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, xi.

10 Ibid., 16.

11 Mouffe, Return of the Political, 33.

12 Ibid., 2.

13 Ibid., 3.

14 Schmitt, Concept of the Political.

15 Mouffe, “Schmitt and the Paradox,” 51.

16 Mouffe, Return of the Political, 5.

17 Ibid., 6.

18 Rawls, Political Liberalism.

19 Rorty, “Religion as Conversation-stopper,” 1–6.

20 Mouffe, Agonistics, 55.

21 Mouffe, Return of the Political, 142–3.

22 See ibid., ch. 8.

23 This and the quotation above from ibid., 131.

24 Ibid., 132.

25 Ibid.

26 See e.g., Asad, Formations of the Secular; Mahmood, “Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire;” Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence. For a discussion of the difficulties in defining “religion,” particularly in relation to politics, see my discussion in Gillin, “Religion as Liturgical Continuum.”

27 Mouffe, Return of the Political, 6–7. Cf. similar comments about how “identifications of an ethnic, religious, or nationalist nature […] lead to the emergence of antagonisms that cannot be managed by the democratic process”, in Mouffe, “Which Public Sphere?” 56.

28 See Mouffe, “Religion, Liberal Democracy,” 318–26.

29 Ibid., 325.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., 320.

32 Ibid., 321.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 325.

35 Hansen and Sonnichsen, “Radical Democracy, Agonism,” 269. It should be noted, however, that she sees a legitimate case for recognizing the centrality of Islam in Middle Eastern countries as they move toward democracy. See Mouffe, Agonistics, XVI.

36 Mouffe, “Religion, Liberal Democracy,” 325.

37 Acampora, “Demos Agonistes,” 385. Italics original.

38 Ibid., 386.

39 She does this in several places, such as in Mouffe, Democratic Paradox, 66.

40 Ibid.

41 Springs, “Religious Intolerance,” 26. These comments are in the context of assessing a Nietzschean critique of Mouffe’s use of Wittgenstein. See Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 67.

42 See Springs, “Religious Intolerance,” 26, and Acampora, “Demos Agonistes,” 386.

43 Springs, “Religious Intolerance,” 26–7.

44 Mouffe, Return of the Political, 57.

45 See e.g., Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits.

46 Mouffe, “Religion, Liberal Democracy,” 321. In Return of the Political, she agrees with Rawls that “a political conception of justice cannot be derived from one particular religious, moral or philosophical conception of the good life”. (p. 55) But does that mean a conception of justice is therefore not bound up in metaphysical commitments?

47 Mouffe, Democratic Paradox, 69.

48 Ibid., 68.

49 For a helpful discussion of this, see Seaton, “The Metaphysics of Postmodernism.”

50 Pettit, “Rawls’ Political Ontology,” 157.

51 Bengston, Explorations, 7.

52 Lowe, Philosophy of Mind, 4.

53 Groff, Ontology Revisited, 1.

54 Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization, 1.

55 Connolly, Identity/Difference, xxvii.

56 Mouffe, Agonistics, 13–4.

57 Connolly, Identity/Difference, xxix (emphasis original).

58 Connolly is, in fact, quite hesitant to say in advance where lines of exclusion can be drawn, emphasizing instead the posture of engagement (critical responsiveness, as he terms it). See Connolly, Why I Am Not, 195n28.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and a grant from the Church Research Institute.