Every democratic consensus is a provisional hegemony that entails exclusion
Evidence
It is for that reason that the ideal of a pluralist democracy cannot be to reach a rational consensus in the public sphere. Such a consensus cannot exist. We have to accept that every consensus exists as a temporary result of a provisional hegemony, as a stabilization of power, and that it always entails some form of exclusion. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 467
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: This is the paradigm-shifting core: democracy’s legitimacy rests not on pure rationality but on acknowledged provisional hegemonies that always exclude — directly central to the reader’s conceptual test.
- XREF: Sets up the tension the reader is probing: if consensus always entails exclusion, what happens to the excluded — do they become Enemy or adversary? — connects to: Every consensus is a provisional hegemonic stabilization entailing exclusion. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 467; No political consensus could exist free of exclusion — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 139; Democratic equality cannot exist without a correlate of inequality and exclusion — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 173 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Every consensus is a provisional hegemonic stabilization entailing exclusion.
#corroborates(0.98) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 467 - Democratic consensus is always the crystallization of hegemonic power relations, never neutral agreement
#expands(0.92) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 223 - No political consensus could exist free of exclusion
#corroborates(0.86) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 139 - Democratic equality cannot exist without a correlate of inequality and exclusion
#corroborates(0.85) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 173 - The moral consensus itself can silence those excluded from the start
#exemplifies(0.78) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 351 - Common allegiance to pluralist democratic principles is necessarily a conflictual consensus
#exemplifies(0.76) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 464 - Formal democracy renders class domination invisible by dispersing it into a naturalized consensus.
#exemplifies(0.74) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 914