Democracy requires renouncing any actor’s claim to total representation

Evidence

Coming to terms with the constitutive nature of power implies relinquishing the ideal of a democratic society as the realization of a perfect harmony or transparency. The democratic character of a society can only be given by the fact that no limited social actor can attribute to herself or himself the representation of the totality and claim to have the ‘mastery’ of the foundation. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 452

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim ‘no limited actor can claim mastery of the foundation’ is the pluralist bulwark against exclusion — the point that may underwrite a non-exclusionary ‘we’ — though its anti-foundationalist weight resists one-line summary.
• XREF: Connects to reader’s core question of whether a non-exclusionary pluralist ‘we’ is conceivable, and to post-foundationalist political thought (Laclau, Lefort). — connects to: Democracy’s defining trait is that no actor represents the whole — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 101; True democracy requires that every citizen can potentially govern

Broader Connections

• Democracy’s defining trait is that no actor represents the whole #corroborates (0.95) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 101
• True democracy requires that every citizen can potentially govern #expands (0.75)