Power Discourse Subject PJP

POLISH JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 2011), 117-136.

Power, Discourse, and Subject. The Case of Laclau and
Foucault

Lotar Rasiski
University of Lower Silesia

Abstract. In this text the author draws on two contemporary accounts of powerby
Michel Foucault and Ernesto Laclauand, on the basis of thorough analysis and com-
parison, he argues for the discursive account of power (DAP) as a new concept re-
flecting the novel approach to the theory of power developed by these two philosophers.
He opens with a broad methodological outline of contemporary concepts of power,
distinguishing between the classical and the modern approaches. Basing his find-
ings on Laclaus and Foucaults work, he then presents DAP as a theory characterized
by decentralizing, non-normative, and conflict-based tendencies that does not exhibit
many of the limitations that usually characterize both classical and modern concepts of
power. In the second part of the article the author presents a detailed methodological
analysis of Foucaults and Laclaus concepts of power, focusing on three axes: power,
discourse, and the subject. The author dedicates the last section to a comparison of both
approaches, concluding that DAP is an inspiring project that exceeds the limits of tradi-
tional liberal theories of power and politics.

Introduction: classical and modern accounts of power

All agree that the problem of power has been one of the most important
issues of political philosophy from Plato till present times. All agree also, as
I suppose, that power is one of the most essential elements of social life,
without the analysis of which it would be impossible to understand what
modern society is. However, most theoreticians stress the fact that so far all
attempts to create a unified, complete and satisfactory theory of power have
failed. There are fundamental difficulties with defining what power is, how
it is manifested and how it influences individuals, to what extent it
conditions social behaviour, what are and what should be the limits of
exercising power, as well as whether it is at all possible to create a model of
power which would be characterized by respect both for individual rights
and the rules of social justice.
Another problem, concerning not so much power itself as the theory of
power, is connected with the fact that each attempt at formulating such a
theory is inevitably related to a political choice, and thus becomes
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118 Power, Discourse, and Subject. The Case of Laclau and Foucault
ideological. There are usually two possible stances to take regarding these
difficulties. For some (Bourdieu, Foucault, Laclau), any reflection on
society which attempts to evade political implications is impossible. In
effect, the only task for philosophy is the critique and demystification of
this dependency. Thus, theoreticians of this sort will be, most often, a kind
of political realists underlining the omnipresence of power relations and
giving up on the creation of a good model of power and its
implementation by the state. Abandoning the issue of legitimation and
improvement of political systems, they focus rather on the
characterization of particular manifestations of power in everyday life in
order to unravel its mechanisms and range, as well as to consider the
possibility of resistance. For others (Weber, Parsons, Rawls), the possibility
of grounding the theoretical discussion of power in the sphere of politics
would only subvert its authority, and, what follows, the disciplinary
grounding of such statements. That is why, according to these theoreticians,
it is necessary to defend the independence of knowledge from politico-
social influences and try to construct models of power which would be
empirically verifiable and philosophically answerable. All of them, though,
seem to agree that one working definition of power and one objective and
generally accepted theory based on that definition do not exist.
Such methodological assumptions lying at the base of a theory will
undoubtedly influence how the definition of power is constructed and how
questions it forces are being answered. Thus, I assume that there exist two
general tendencies in the analyses of power: the classical and the
modern one. The differentiation I develop establishes, of course, a certain
convention and is meant to serve as a general reference for the clearer and
more transparent expression of something we could name the general
tendency in the analyses of power.
I characterize the classic formulation thus: (1) the problem of power is
usually analyzed in the context of its legitimacy or lack thereof, i.e. by
asking what is the source of the right to rule (natural law, divine law, social
contract, etc.), when is the exercise of political power legitimated and when
is it not, etc. etc.; (2) the center of power is most often situated in the state
understood as the political institutions which have the right of making
laws, to use John Lockes words; (3) the scope of power is associated with
the limits of state law; (4) it posits a separation of the public sphere from
the private sphere, with which political power (government) is not allowed
to interfere; (5) power is a contractual relation between the ruler and the
ruled; (6) a breach of the contract by the ruler results in repression or
usurpation, and in the right to rebel on the part of the ruled.
I argue that the classic formulation of the definition of power has only a
limited analytical efficacy. It cannot describe the way in which an
individual is embroiled in the social and economic system of institutions, to
Lotar Rasiski 119

what extent he (or she) depends on them, and to what extent he (or she) is
capable of influencing and transforming them. An analysis of power in
terms of how adequatly political institutions function and follow the law
ignores a whole series of phenomena occurring in our present social and
political reality which I in fact believe to be, quite crucial. If there are
significant social groups that consider themselves as having no influence on
either current or long-term state policy (e.g. new social movements), the
type of analysis which recognizes such conflicts and crosses the artificial
divisions between the political and the social is, in my opinion, a more
proper analytical tool for understanding contemporary society .
Therefore, I contrast this classical conception of power with a modern
one, characterized among other things by the crossing over of power
relations beyond the sphere of political institutions, and the bracketing of
the problem of legitimacy. Since the French and American Revolutions, a
common conviction in political theory has been that power is maintained on
the basis of general public support. In democratic countries power has been
seemingly maintained simply by citizens granting legitimacy to their
representatives. In the modern concept of power the situation becomes more
complex. The question of legitimacy turns out to be of secondary
importance when it becomes apparent that the government endowed with
legitimacy does not, in fact, rule in the name of the masses, but instead in
the covert interests of the elites, certain classes, sexes, races, etc. According
to theoreticians of the modern approach to power, the exercise of power
finds entirely new theatres of operation. Foucault, for example, points out
manifestations of the exercise of disciplinary power in families, factories,
prisons and schools, i.e. in the institutions which could not be consider
political by the classic formulation of power. Together with a changed view
concerning the location of power, the borderline between the public and
private spheres becomes blurred.
Historically, we can find the beginnings of the modern concept of power
in the Marxist theory of class and in the way it connects domination with
access to the means of production; in Nietzsches concept of the will to
power, positing the basic social relationship to be that of domination and
subjugation (master and slave), which is in some sense a biological relation;
and in the Freudian theory of the unconscious, which describes power as a
relation within the subject.
It is necessary to stress here that the opposition between the modern and
the classical approaches to power cannot be reduced only to historical
arguments. I do not claim that the theories of Freud, Marx and Nietzsche
represent the rupture between the classical and the modern epoch in the
study of power. Instead, the opposition lies in the contrasting types of
reflection. The most we can say is that in the 19
th
century, alongside the
classical conception of power there emerged a new type of reflection on
power, which ultimately lead to the treatment of power as a cultural
phenomenon. Thus in the contemporary discussions of power both the
classical and the modern models of thinking about power are applied.
Among the contemporary representatives of the modern conceptions of
power are e.g. M. Walzer, J. Habermas, E. Laclau and Ch. Mouffe, S.
Lukes, M. Foucault, W.E. Connolly, and many others. The classical
theoreticians are, among others, M. Oakeshott, R. Dworkin, R. Nozick, J.
Rawls, or R. Aron.
It is important to notice that both the classical and the modern
conceptions of power favor normative reflection, but it is of a different
character in each case. While most contemporary classical theoreticians of
power concentrate on the problem of state government and its
implementation of the rule of law or principles of justice and liberty (e.g.
Dworkin, Rawls), the modern thinkers will unravel the negative effects of
the exercise of power outside political institutions in the classic sense,
focusing on elements of social life such as education, habits, the influence
of technology and media, access to the means of production, ideology,
gender and race (e.g. Frankfurt school). Yet in both formulations one may
condemn or seek to improve the form of government in the name of
postulated normative ideals, such as autonomy, freedom, social justice, etc.
The normative element seems to be something natural in the majority of
theories of power. Most of them consist in capturing the difference between
the existing state of affairs and the required state of affairs. This difference
indicates that our social reality is not as it is supposed to be and that it needs
to be transformed into a proper one. The downside of this kind of
analyses is that they are not capable of critically examining the existing
social or political reality; they describe not what it is, but only what it
should be. Therefore a number of irresolvable difficulties arises in
connection with the normative type of analysis of power, in many cases
making it useless and contradictory. First of all, one assumes in this type of
analysis that the position from which the demands have been raised is
external in relation to the field in which they should be applied. It means
that the theorist is not a part of the bad reality described by him, and that
he, as the only one, liberated himself from it and recognized what is good
for the society. This is the case not only with Marxism, in which the role of
such a normative indicator is played by the promise of a future
communist society, where man is free of any oppression or apparatus of
control, and is able to realize his own real nature. Also in classical
liberalism, the concept of the proper state of nature takes a similar
position: man in this state is in his natural condition, and the main
objective behind the founding of a society is to better preserve his natural
Lotar Rasiski 121

rights and capabilities.
1
Subsequently, a series of questions can be raised in
relation to this kind of claim: Why should one concept of human nature be
better than another? Why should one system of values, e.g. one based on
the idea of individual freedom, be better than another, e.g. one based on the
idea of equality? Are there any bases other than religious ones for
statements concerning the direction in which a given society should evolve?
My main goal in this text is to present, on the basis of the concept of
power by Michel Foucault and the idea of hegemony by Ernesto Laclau, a
mode of thinking about power which is free of the contradictions connected
with both the normative and the classical reflection on power. Let me call it
the discursive account of power. Let me now summarize in a few points
the similarities between Laclaus and Foucaults approaches, which will
make it possible, in my view, to speak about a parallel theoretical account:
(1) we can find the common roots of both theories in the structuralist theory
of language/discourse; (2) both theories reject any kind of foundationalist or
essentialist thinking (e.g. critique of economism); (3) in both approaches
the concept of discourse, understood as a theoretical horizon within which
an analysis of society becomes possible, is the methodological starting
point; (4) this results in a view of power that is decentralized and dispersed,
i.e. power becomes a set of relationships, techniques and practices with no
privileged field of reference; (5) the concept of conflict or antagonism plays
an equally important role in both theories; (6) neither theory is based on any
normative assumptions; they try rather to show and to depict the
mechanisms of power, resigning from utopian visions of a perfect society;
(7) in both theories the stress is placed on productive or creative aspects of
power, especially in the context of the relationship between the individual
and the social, and not only on negative and prohibitive ones.

Foucault: subject, repression, and war

Throughout his working life, Foucault has repeatedly stressed that his
intention in research and writing was not to arrive at something one could
call a theory of power. In one of his last texts, The Subject and Power,
for example, he states:

I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last
twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate
the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create the
history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made
subjects. (Foucault, 1982, p. 208)

1
It does not matter here that the liberal ideal served only as a kind of hypothesis
which had only theoretical importance. The fact is that in both approaches we can find a
similar theoretical construction, based on some essentialist assumptions.
First of all, the issue is not to create an objective and unhistorical
description of power. Foucault is interested in power in so far as it is
connected with the subject, as a technique of objectification. By this
technique he understands a takeover and rationalization of some
unconceptualized field, for example when madness became a subject of
newly emerging sciences (at this time still pseudo-sciences, or types of
knowledge) of psychology and psychiatry in the nineteenth century. We
encounter a similar approach in The Order of Things (1970) where other
objectifications appear, that of Man in language, life, and work (his three
doubles) or in the prisoner or the subject of sexuality in later works. This
understanding stresses the tight connection between the practices of power
and knowledge that Foucault describes by means of the concept of
power/knowledge. The subject plays a double role here: s/he is the product
of historical power relations and, at the same time, the main agent through
whom power gains access to knowledge. This means that there is no one-
directional relation between power and knowledge, but rather that both
elements mutually exchange and support each other.
On the other hand, however, stress should be placed on these modes
by which human beings are made subjects. Foucaults concern is not to
create a general theory of power, but rather to depict the specific and
concrete techniques and practices through which subjects become
subjugated, processes that belong both to the sphere of politics and that of
epistemology. That is why Foucault prefers to refer to his own approach to
power as analytics rather than theory. By analytics Foucault
understands a definition of a specific domain formed by power relations
and a determination of the instruments that will make possible its analysis
(Foucault, 1978, p. 82; compare Foucault, 1980a, p. 199).
These two tendencies are visible throughout Foucaults work: on the one
hand, he seems to be a historian of knowledge in the French meaning of
the word, concerned with a whole set of methodological problems that one
can find in Bachelard or Canguilhem (e.g. the problem of the status of some
sciences, that of historical changes in some of them, or the place of the
subject in analysis); on the other hand, he was very often, and gradually
more and more so, interested in the political dimension of his work, the
consequence of which was placing the concept of power in a significant
theoretical position. A clear picture of this tension in his work is to be
found in his reference to two complementary methods: archeological and
genealogical, where Foucault tries to situate and distribute properly the two
components of analysis, the political and the epistemological. Therefore,
power in his work is not a separate and privileged theoretical problem, but
rather one of several instruments through which analysis of the modes
by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects is possible
(Foucault, 1982, p. 208).
Lotar Rasiski 123

One of the main arguments of Foucaults account of power is to avoid
something he calls economism in the theory of power. Paradoxically, this
element can be seen not only in Marxism, but also, and perhaps most
importantly, in juridical or liberal conceptions of political power based
on the concept of sovereignty. While in the Marxist tradition the economy
is a historical raison dtre of power, a principle of its functioning, in
liberalism the power is considered to be a right which one is able to possess
like a commodity, and which one can transfer to anybody by some legal act
that we could call a contract. The partial or total cession by an individual
of his/her rights enables the functioning of power and the establishment of
sovereignty. As a consequence, one can say that the basis for the
constitution of political power is a contractual type of exchange, that is
basically an economic relationship (see Foucault, 1980b, p. 88). Foucault
believes that this kind of analysis does not exhaust the multiplicity of power
relations operating in society. And if power is not to be seen as a possession
or a commodity that we can exchange, if it exists only in action, it has to be
seen as a relation of force. Foucault differentiates between two kinds of
analysis of power based on this view: either power is understood as an
organ of repression (repressive hypothesis) or as a relation of struggle,
conflict and war (hypothesis of war) (Foucault, 1980b, p. 90).
It is clear that the concept of repression played a significant role in
Foucaults earlier writings. For instance, the image of the exclusion of
madness and its submission to reason in Madness and Civilization (1965)
has strong Freudian and Hegelian connotations. Either on the
epistemological level, in Descartes reflections on the cogito, or on the
social level, in the whole machinery of confinement of the poor and the lazy
in asylums, we can find a common mechanism of repression described by
Freud in the double play of the conscious and the unconscious. Foucault,
however, has always been diffident of the notion of repression, because it
is quite inadequate for capturing what is precisely the productive aspect of
power (Foucault, 1980c, p. 119). Defining power in terms of repression,
one has to adopt a purely juridical conception of power and identify it
with law understood as a prohibitive force. Foucault finds impossible the
efficiency of such power:

What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it
doesnt only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces
things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. (Foucault, 1980c,
p. 119)

Foucault considers an approach to power based on the relation of struggle
and war in his lectures given at College de France in 1976 (Foucault, 2003).
He proposes a reversal of Clausevitzs assertion that war is politics
continued by other means: politics (power), in his view, is the continuation
of war by other means (Foucault, 2003, p. 48). Historically, Foucault
places the beginnings of this kind of thinking about power in the 17th
century, in the English and French anti-monarchist movements, even if in
both countries they were of a different character.
2
Foucault calls this
discourse about power historico-political in opposition to the philosophico-
juridical discourse of sovereignty. The main characteristic of this discourse
is the assumption that social order, the organization and structure of law,
and the functioning of power are not the consequence of pre-established
consent or contract, but rather they are an effect of mud of the battle
(Foucault, 2003, p. 47). Society, according to Foucault, is based on real
war, permanent and silent, which goes on behind the official declarations of
peace. Everybody is engaged in this war, nobody stays neutral. A binary
structure runs through society (Foucault, 2003, p. 51)Foucault
concludes.

Laclau: hegemony, antagonism, and empty signifiers

Laclaus idea of hegemony stems directly from that branch of Marxism
which rejected economism as the only and the ultimate factor contributing
to social change and highlighted the role of politics, ideology, and culture
as equally important. According to Laclau and Mouffe, the concept of
hegemony was an attempt to supplement the economic logic of necessity
with the political logic of contingency. The need to break the Marxist
iron logic of history appeared in the writings of the late 19
th
and early 20
th

century theoreticians, who recognized that capitalism is not only far from
collapsing, but that it is capable of self-reform in order to avoid the
predicted pauperization and polarization of society, which in turn were
to be followed by a general revolution and a change of the political
constitution. These thinkers started to look for theoretical solutions which
would take into consideration the importance of factors other than
economic for the historical process. Breaking with the explanation of
historical processes which relied on the necessary mechanism of class
struggle made it possible to introduce an element of contingency. Thus,
in the orthodox version of Marxism by Kautsky, intellectuals are to be the
force capable of preventing the fragmentation of the working classes and
the depolarization of the social field, and of restoring the proper direction of
the historical process. For Bernstein, the inventor of revisionism, the social-
democratic party was to be such a factor, while Sorel spoke of the myth of
the general strike. According to Lenin, hegemony meant political
leadership within a broader class alliance, uniting peasants, agricultural

2
In England it was based mainly on the bourgeoisie and peoples revolt against
absolute monarchy; in France the group most opposed to the monarchy was the
aristocracy.
Lotar Rasiski 125

workers and soldiers under the banner of the working class. The most
important issue was no longer the position within the social structure, but
rather the struggle against the common enemythe tsarist regime. The
most complete depiction of hegemony is provided by Gramsci, who
describes it as an ideological struggle of peoples hearts and minds, in
which a new collective identity, or to use Gramscis own words, a new
collective will is constituted. The economic factor becomes for him only
one of the manifestations of the historical process. For Gramsci, such
elements as race or religion are equally important.
3

Laclaus initial philosophical standpoint was close to that of such
theoreticians of Marxism as Althusser, Balibar or Poulantzas. This is clear
from his first work published in 1977, Politics and Ideology in Marxist
Theory (Laclau, 1977), which reveals a strong influence of the French
wave of Marxism of the sixties. However, even this early work contains
elements which herald Laclaus later dismissal of Althusserism and its
structural account of Marxism. The concept of relative autonomy of
superstructure as it was introduced by Althusser and his followers did not
change the traditional concept of economy, which still appeared as an
abstract entity located outside of the society and its relations, i.e. having its
own logic and being apolitical. The main point of disagreement, however,
was class reductionism, which Laclau completely dismissed toward the end
of the 1970s. A clear conclusion of this process was the publication,
together with Chantal Mouffe, of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985).
This work provoked a wave of discussion in the circles of contemporary
Marxists. The opponents most frequently criticized the authors for
undermining Marxisms scientificity and for decreasing the role of the
economy by introducing a new account of historical agency which
undermined the idea of class as the main motor of history. It should be
stressed, however, that the principal arguments of the work were in
agreement with the criticism of Marxism provided not only by the
proponents of neogramscianism, but also by feminists, theoreticians of
culture, and political scientists who were interested in the emergence of
new social movements not directly related to class divisions.
The restoration of Gramscis political thought in Great Britain was
closely connected to the success of Margaret Thatcher and her party in the
general elections of 1979 (and subsequently in 1983 and 1987). This fact
provoked the leftist intellectuals sympathizing with the Labour Party to
revise their approach and beliefs. They realized that it was not a strong
program of economic reforms that decided about Thatchers victory, but
rather the ideological battle over the hearts and minds of the British

3
An excellent review of the genealogy of the concept of hegemony in socialist
tradition is provided by Laclau and Mouffe in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985),
pp. 7-46.
people. Thatcher won not only the ballots of the middle class, but also of a
significant portion of the working class vote. To explain this phenomenon,
many intellectuals returned to Gramsci and his idea of moral-intellectual
reform. The attractiveness of Gramsci, however, was limited by the
essentialist residues, which did not allow him to fully develop a non-
economic theory of hegemonic articulation. One can place Gramsci,
together with Althusser, within the current of Marxist reforms that have
been undertaken from the inside, but which regard the logic of
contingency, as it appears in the theory of hegemony, rather as a
supplement to the general mechanisms of history, which remain unmodified
as such. Laclau and Mouffe assume the task of removing these essentialist
residues, attempting to elaborate on certain Marxist themes and to complete
them by adding elements of social critique developed by poststructuralism.
To put it shortly: their main idea is to make essential an area of
investigation that was previously considered only a supplementary field. To
some degree, Marxism is a starting point for Laclau and Mouffe, but from
their theoretical position a return to Marxism in the classical sense is
impossible.
Laclaus concept of hegemony assumes that the social is a
multidimensional field of antagonistic forces, which is ruled by the logic of
contingency rather than necessity. Similarly to Marxism, social conflict
still plays an important role, but economic conflict has the same status as,
for instance, racial or ideological conflicts. There is no ultimate foundation
of conflict that would be able to polarize the social while producing at the
same time a clear and transparent picture of the social structure. Laclau
rejects the idea of the ultimate conflict, as well as the liberal conception
of the social contract, according to which free individuals conscious of their
rights and interests work to constitute social order by putting a portion of
their rights into the hands of their representative, or to use Hobbes words,
the sovereign. The core of the idea of hegemony lies in the assumption that
such a constituting exchange is impossible. To perform such an act it is
necessary to assume that the subjects participating in it have a pre-
established identity. And this, in turn, results in the theoretical privileging
of some social spheres, those in which these identities could find
grounding.
Instead, Laclau proposes that every process of representation, as the
principle of functioning of democratic societies, understood either liberally
or in the Marxist context, assumes some interference with the identity of the
representative as well as of the represented.

The original gap in the identity of the represented, which needed to be filled by a
supplement contributed by the process of representation, opens an undecidable
movement in two directions that is constitutive and irreducible. There is an
Lotar Rasiski 127

opaqueness, an essential impurity in the process of representation, which is at the
same time its condition of both possibility and impossibility. (Laclau, 1996, p. 98).

The need for representation follows from the fact that the basic identity of
the represented is constituted in a certain place A, but the decisions which
can influence this identity are arrived at in place B. The representative then
inscribes this interest into a complex reality totally different from that in
which it was formulated, while at the same time this interest is transformed
and established anew. The hegemonic dimension of the social is then
contingent enough not to permit the introduction of any privileged position
within the social, while at the same time rejecting any necessity to
complete such an original state of affairs. The political field is a result of
the competition between many various forces, where both the identities and
interests of particular agents are forged. Hence, multiple political alliances
and configurations are possible which in no way reflect the traditional
labels to which we got so used, and which do not fit the political reality.
The goal of hegemony is to transform the demands of some social
groups into universal ones, so that they would be able to encompass as
many particular demands as possible, becoming their representatives. These
universal demands are usually an expression of opposition against some
dominating force that plays the role of a great oppressor, while at the
same time mobilizing and universalizing the demands of particular groups.
That is why Laclau stresses so strongly the agonism of the political
condition. The interests of particular social groups are constituted mostly in
opposition to some dominating political forceat least in the images they
produce, for example, for election purposesa force that is to be seen as a
threat for the other groups, i.e. for the whole community. Any success of
the hegemonic struggle, consisting in the encompassment of the entire field
of particular demands by one of the groups, is followed by the loss of that
specificity which had been the reason for choosing that particular group as a
representative of a broader field of interests. This is because the
achievement of hegemony is related to the simultaneous elimination of the
great oppressor and the assumption of its role by the new hegemonic
group. From this moment the game of hegemony starts again from the
beginning. There is no stable and long-term hegemony; it exists only as a
temporary intervention, as the mobilization of demands against the existing
regime.
Following this description of hegemony and generalizing it, one can say
that the most important dimension of political power is that of the
language/discourse game rather than that of any other social factor. If we
understand discourse as an open theoretical horizon through which the
analysis of the social is possible, and if we assume together with Laclau that
the discursive is a meaningful totality that is not organized around any
original foundation, we can recognize the importance of the symbolic or
rhetorical level within the political sphere. That is why Laclau introduces
the concept of empty signifierssignifiers without signifieds. Empty
signifiers refer to any attempt at encompassing all the differences within a
certain field of meaning; one can say that it is the practice of hegemony in
the kingdom of meaning. This is the case of Saussures idea of language
considered as a closed system. There being a limit to this system is in fact
the condition for its existence and for the process of signification. When
some set of elements is described as a system, it becomes indispensable to
exclude what is not a part of this system. This means constituting an outside
by means of a limitthe borderline where the linguistic passes into the
extra-linguistic. Speaking more generally, in order to exist every system of
signification requires something to limit it, to separate it from what it is not,
to exclude what is its opposite. According to Laclau, the limit of the process
of signification must present an interruption, a breakdown in signification.
Thus we are left with the paradoxical situation that what constitutes the
condition of possibility of a signifying systemits limitsis also what
constitutes its condition of impossibilitya blockage of the continuous
expansion of the process of signification (Laclau, 1996, p. 37).
Turning back to our example of hegemony as an attempt to attain
political power through the mobilization and universalization of particular
demands, we can easily show how empty signifiers are socially
constructed. The existence of a particular struggling group is determined by
the existence of an oppressive groupno matter whether constructed,
imagined, or realthat is its constitutive outside. On the one hand,
abolishing the great oppressor is the main goal mobilizing the oppressed
group into action. On the other hand, the completion of this demand
undermines the very raison d'tre of the group. To use Laclaus words, the
great oppressor is the condition of both possibility and impossibility of
the group.
One can refer to examples of the functioning of empty signifiers
which are closer to our political reality. Any political action aimed at
attaining hegemony is usually connected with the offering of radical
solutions to the undesirable state of affairs. Thus, the aspiring group
describes the world dominated by the great oppressor as untrue or unreal,
and presents its own solution as the only possible alternative. That is why
we hear so often that after elections we will find real freedom or real
justice or equality, etc. These expressions are in fact the best examples of
the functioning of empty signifiers in politics. As we know very well, they
can be used by any political force, whether the right or the left, radicals or
moderates; and they can be filled at any time by another meaning, precisely
because they are essentially empty. Only temporary fixations of their
meaning are possible, and these are historically and politically dependent.
Lotar Rasiski 129

That is why the history of thought knows so many versions of what is good
and what is bad for society, of what is freedom and what is its violation.
Let me summarize in a few points Laclaus view of hegemony, or,
speaking more generally, his view of power.
The main condition of hegemony is the unevenness of power relations
that makes conflict possible. This means that one of the groups competing
in the hegemonic struggle is able to attain superiority over others, to
propose its own demands, and to present oneself as being capable of
representing a universal task.
There is hegemony only if the dichotomy universality/particularity is
superseded; universality exists only if it is incarnated inand subverts
some particularity. Conversely, however, no particularity can become
political without also becoming the locus of universalizing effects.
Hegemony requires the production of empty signifiers which make the
play of the universal and the particular possible, enabling the latter to take
up the representation of the former.
The relation of representation is the condition of the constitution of
social order, and again, of the play between the universal and the particular
(see Laclau, 2000, p. 207).
Let me illustrate this with the example of Laclaus interpretation of
Hobbes idea of the sovereign. According to Hobbes, the therapy for a
malady called the state of nature was power. The establishment of
community and hierarchy was meant to emancipate people from ruinous
equality. Equality embodied extreme disorder, arbitrariness, egoism, and a
permanent possibility of the outbreak of conflict; it was a source of
suffering and menace. Hobbes noticed an essential issue here: the need for
collectivity was due to a lack of order that would be a response to the
inconveniences of the state of nature. The only alternative to the state of
nature could be absolute power concentrated in the hands of the sovereign
as the embodiment of the society as a totality. It was unimportant for
Hobbes whether the ruler represented some special virtues or capabilities.
The ruler was only an actualization of order, a radical alternative to the
disorder of the state of nature.
The Sovereign, the highest and the only power in the community is,
however, nothing but a concentration of forces held by each citizen
individually. In Hobbes opinion, the Sovereign is not a distinct and
independent being. Instead, it is an artificial creature, a kind of totality
which embodies and collects the capacities of individual subjects; it is a
symbol of the unity of a community. As a consequence, the Sovereign must
also embody directly the will of the whole community. On the one hand,
this logical construction does not allow him to operate against the
community, because in this way he would be a threat to himself; on the
other hand, to rebel against the Sovereign is an absurdity, because in
principle the subjects would be rebelling against themselves.
Paradoxically, in this way Hobbes theoretically eliminated power in two
ways. In the state of nature power is distributed evenly among all the
people, which completely eliminates power. Nobody can gain advantage
over anybody else, because every individual is bestowed with the same
capabilities, and therefore with the same ability to rule. We are, however,
dealing with a similar situation when power is absolute, when it is
concentrated in the hands of an artificial creaturethe Leviathanwhich is
nothing but a collection of the capacities of all individuals. We are losing
one essential and indispensable element of the power relation: who is to be
the ruled, when in the process of this quasi-representation the sovereign
directly reflects the will of the individuals? And on the other hand, who is
to be the ruler if the will of the ruled decides everything? Power becomes
impossible in this way, because the community constitutes an absolute
unity. This eliminates the relation of representation, since it requires two
separate subjects and the relation of articulation between them. The radical
universal moment of the constitution of the Sovereign also eliminates the
interplay between the universal and the particular, an interplay which
Laclau considers to be essential for the political. This approach, therefore,
is located directly on the opposite side of the idea of hegemony,
undermining most of its critical assumptions.

Laclau and Foucault: power, discourse, and subject

Let me continue now with a comparison of Laclaus and Foucaults
accounts of power. I will analyze their approaches on the basis of the three
essential axes: power, discourse and subject, which, I argue, cannot
be treated separately.
Let me first briefly address certain issues which do not constitute an
argument, but which show the preliminary difficulties linked to this matter.
The first difference between Laclau and Foucault is of course connected to
the theoretical traditions on which they draw. Foucault insists on pointing
out his own connections to the so called, philosophy of knowledge, of
rationality, and of the concept, reminding the readers that he is the
inheritor of Bachelards and Canguilhems thought, and separates this line
of thinking from philosophy of experience, of meaning, and of the subject
with Sartre and Merleau-Ponty (see Foucault, 1999, p. 466). Laclau,
instead, locates himself in the non-orthodox Marxist tradition led by
Gramsci. The different backgrounds of the two thinkers affect the
objectives they embrace in significant ways. Foucaults goal is rather
theoretical: he tries to show the history of how human beings are
transformed into subjects. In this sense, I would call him rather a historian
Lotar Rasiski 131

of knowledge than a political philosopher. Laclau, on the other hand, sets
an essentially political problem: he wants to rethink the project of the left
in the face of the theoretical as well as practical defeat of Marxism.
The issue here, however, is to find similar modes of thinking about
power in their two approaches. We can attain this only by temporarily
suspending our knowledge of their theoretical location and purposes and by
considering both propositions structurally. We will therefore focus on some
methodological issues, as well as on those descriptive parts of their analyses
which contain their detailed views of the mechanisms of power.
First, it should be mentioned that theory of discourse plays a similar
methodological role in Laclaus and in Foucaults thought: it is a certain
theoretical tool which enables one to analyze political reality. We can find
the roots of the two accounts in poststructuralist revision of Saussures idea
of language. Laclaus concept of discourse shares a series of assumptions
with Derridas or Lacans critique of the structural approach to language,
especially in rejecting the idea of language as a closed system, as well as
the idea of strict isomorphism between the order of the signified and that of
the signifier which stems from Saussures theory. This criticism results in
an account of discourse seen as an open and decentralized signifying field,
where one cannot find any privileged position. The meaning of a sign is
determined rather in terms of the free play of signifiers and their differential
positions, and not as an effect of reference to a stable signified or some
extra-discursive object. Laclau and Mouffe fully agree on this point with
Foucault, and use his expression from Archeology of Knowledge (1972),
regularity in dispersion, to stress the impossibility of any unifying
principle of discourse, except the dispersion itself. In this sense, the
discursive constitutes a domain where we can find specific rules concerning
the functioning of discursive elements, i.e. some regularities which are not
at all limited to language relations. This is stressed by Laclau when he
speaks about the openness of the discursive pointing to its social and
historical character. The determination of meaning depends on the
interference of various dimensions of discourse, including social, political
or economic relations.
Foucault similarly talks about the interdependence of the discursive and
the extradiscursive. The system of discourse formation, for example,
includes not only the relations between different kinds of discourses, but
also the influence of techniques, practices, institutions, or social groups
which play an important role in the constitution of the discursive formation.
The problem, however, lies in Foucaults assigning, to use Dreyfuss and
Rabinows words, a relative autonomy to the discursive, and finally
treating it as a privileged and abstract field of analysis. This is precisely
what Laclau and Mouffe criticize in their work, Hegemony and Socialist
Strategy: Foucault, for example, who has maintained a distinctionin our
opinion inconsistentbetween discursive and non-discursive practices,
attempts to determine the relational totality that founds the regularity of the
dispersions of a discursive formation. But he is only capable of doing this in
terms of a discursive practice (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 107). We
encounter similar difficulties when we look at Foucaults concept of
statement (lnonc) from the Archeology of Knowledge (1972). Foucault
seems to consider discourse to be a very limited collection of utterances
which have passed the institutional test and which pretend to spell out the
truth and become knowledge. It is obvious that among all speech acts this
kind of statement is quite rare. According to Laclau, on the other hand, the
whole social reality is meaningful in the sense that it can be understood
only through discourse, which for him is a common matrix of both
behavioral and linguistic aspects of social practice. It should be
stressed, however, that both accounts are directed at the same goal at this
point, which is to show the interdependence between the linguistic and the
social or political practices, even though they attempt to achieve this goal in
two different ways. Furthermore, a natural consequence of defending such a
standpoint is to defend also the historical character of discursive formation,
which is a point strongly emphasized both in Laclaus and Foucaults
writings. Foucault writes about historical a priori as a subject of
archeology, and Laclau says that discourse theory can be included into the
transcendental turn in philosophy, but only with the restriction that
discursive a priori forms are historically dependent.
Let us pass now to the concept of power. Laclau, as could already have
been noticed, does not use the word power and prefers to talk about
hegemony. On the one hand, this serves to remind us that his theoretical
project is close to that of Gramsci, according to whom social life and
political activity organize themselves around two overlapping and mutually
dependent dimensions: political and civil societies. Gramscis idea of
intellectual and moral leadership was meant to demonstrate that a
condition for taking over state power was the achievement of hegemony on
the level of private organisms constituting the civil society. That is why
struggling for the hearts and minds of the people was as important as
struggling for economic rights. Laclaus project, as a continuation of this
aspect of Gramscis thought, introduces a much broader concept of power
than what we find in classical accounts, where power is usually strictly
limited to state-legal institutions. In his view, power is exercised on many
different levels within the society, and it cannot be reduced to any particular
source. We find a similar approach in Foucaults depiction of the
microphysics of power. His entire theoretical effort is aimed at replacing
the view that sees power as a one-dimensional and one-directional force
which has its origin in the hands (or perhaps in the head) of the sovereign.
As Foucault puts it: We must eschew the model of Leviathan in the study
Lotar Rasiski 133

of power (Foucault, 1980b, p. 102) and focus on these peripheral
subjects by which power is exercised. That is why Foucault is interested in
analyzing the historical formations of power such as bio-power,
discipline or governmentality. They are all examples of the exercise of
power that surpasses the fabricated manthe State. In Foucault, power
manifests itself not only in the laws and political institutions, but rather in
the whole network of private organisms, to use Gramscis words,
disciplining and controlling the human body by means of families, schools,
asylums, factories, prisons or barracks. In summary, both theories present
power as decentralized and dispersed throughout the whole society, and as
irreducible to the conscious and intentional actions of particular individuals
or institution.
There is, however, another meaning of hegemony which reminds us of
the differences between the two approaches. Laclau inherits also this part of
the hegemonic tradition which is closely connected to the idea of restoration
and reparation of Marxist thought. In this sense, hegemony is a well-
defined political project, with concrete objectives and tasks to perform. Its
theoretical framework allows one to locate the source of domination and
oppression in a certain historical moment, because the construction of
bipolar divisions within the society belongs to the essence of the political-
discursive reality. And finally, the goal of hegemony is always to gain
power over the entire state, while at the same time eliminating the
hegemonic efforts of the oppressed groups. Therefore, one could say that
Laclaus view of power is much more clearly outlined and determined than
that of Foucault. In Foucaults work power circulates freely through the
network of organizations and individuals, and cannot be described at any
moment as a clear bipolar structure.
The role of conflict in both theories is closely linked to the problem of
the range of power. It is precisely a new formulation of the idea of conflict
that allows Laclau to develop a theory of power that is multidimensional
and not limited to any rigid economic divisions. While the cornerstone of
Marxism was the assumption that all conflicts and struggles within the
society have an economic foundation, and that they are essentially reducible
to the fundamental opposition between the working class and the capitalists,
Laclau's understanding of conflict is much more complex and more
sensitive to contemporary social problems. Articulations of hegemonic
efforts are to be found not only in the struggles for economic rights, but
also for racial, ethnic, sexual, gender and other minority rights. What
should be stressed, however, is that conflict in Laclau still plays an essential
role in the constitution of political reality, and it is this broad understanding
of conflict that makes his theory resistant to the traditional criticisms levied
against Marxism. In this context Laclaus ideas clearly refer to Foucaults
project of eschewing the model of Leviathan. One of its main goals is to
avoid economism in thinking about power. The stake here, however, is
not only the elimination of Marxist economism, but also, and perhaps most
importantly, the elimination of a specific liberal or juridical kind of
economism, named by Foucault contractual exchange or legal
transaction, which allows us to make analogies between power and
commodity, or power and wealth. A better alternative to this type of
analysis proposed by Foucault is the hypothesis of war, i.e. an analysis of
power relations in the society in terms of conflict, struggle, and war.
Similarly to Laclau, Foucault differentiates between multiple dimensions of
struggles which run throughout the society:

either against forms of domination (ethnic, social, and religious); against forms of
exploitation which separate individuals from what they produce; or against that
which ties the individual to himself and submits him to others in this way (struggles
against subjection, against forms of subjectivity and submission). (Foucault, 1982,
p. 212)

At this point we encounter the problem which constitutes perhaps the most
important connection between Laclaus and Foucaults theories.
Paradoxically, in both cases the main condition for conflict to break out in
the society is the existence of a free subject, an active and dynamic
participant in power relations. One can say that the relation of power is
essentially the relation of confrontation between two adversaries, but it is a
confrontation which does not paralyze both sides, it is rather a relation
which is at once reciprocal incitement and struggle (see Foucault, 1982, p.
222). This becomes evident in Foucault when he speaks of agonism in
power relations. A similar assumption can also be found in Laclau, who
insist that hegemony consists in the play of the universal and the particular,
this play marking out their conditions of both possibility and impossibility.
Of course, this is not to say that the subject is totally free. This is rather to
say that in both theories the extreme or radical political situations are
rejected. On the one hand, there is no society without power relations, and
then the actions of the subjects are always somehow limited; in this sense,
there is no absolute freedom either. On the other hand, there is no absolute
or full power, such that could determine all actions.
As a consequence, in both theories power is not only a repressive and
prohibitive force, an obstacle to broadening the sphere of freedom, but
rather it becomes a factor essential for the functioning of the society.
Laclaus concept of articulation, meaning any practice establishing a
relation among elements such that their identity is modified as a result
(Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 105) aims to indicate that social relations
inevitably affect the identities of their subjects, constituting new goals,
interests and demands of the particular political agents. And this is also one
of Foucaults main arguments: he considers the subject to be a target of a
Lotar Rasiski 135

series of techniques and procedures directed not only at controlling, but also
at conducting human actions.
To summarize, I am not attempting to say that in the case of Foucaults
idea of power and Laclaus concept of hegemony we are dealing with one
consistent theoretical model of power. One needs to be aware of the
significant differences between these theories, even as to the very concept
of power. Nevertheless, the evident analogies I tried to point out do allow
us, I suppose, to speak of a similar mode of thinking about power, and
this is exactly what I wanted to present.

References

Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the
Age of Reason. (R. Howard, Trans.) New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences, New York: Pantheon, & London: Tavistock.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on
Language. (A. M. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. (R.
Hurley, Trans.). New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other
Writings 1972-1977 C. Gordon, (Ed.). Harvester Press: London, &
Pantheon Books: New York.
Foucault, M. (1980a). The Confession of the Flesh. (C. Gordon, Trans.). In
Foucault, 1980.
Foucault, M. (1980b). Two Lectures. (K. Soper, Trans.). In Foucault, 1980.
Foucault, M. (1980c). Truth and Power. (P. Patton, & M. Morris, Trans.). In
Foucault, 1980.
Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. In H. L. Dreyfus, & P. K.
Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and
Hermeneutics. Harvester: Hemel Hempstead.
Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel
Foucault L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P. H. Hutton (Eds.). Amherst,
MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Foucault, M. (1999). Life: Experience and Science. (R. Hurley, Trans.) In
Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology (Essential Works of Foucault,
1954-1984, Vol. 2) J.D. Faubion (Ed.). New York: The New Press.
Foucault, M. (2003). Society Must Be Defended. Lectures at the Collge the
France 1975-1976. (D. Macey, Trans.). New York: Picador.
Laclau E., & Mouffe Ch. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. New York-London: Verso.
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POLISH JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 2011), 117-136.

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