Laclau rejected a priori class insertion yet kept class as historical determinant

Evidence

SH : I do not think that opening the door to the discursive field necessarily takes you in that direction. It doesn’t take me there. So I would prefer your first formulation. In Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory , Laclau contests the a priori insertion of classes, for instance, into Marxist analysis because there is no way to substantiate such a philosophical a priori. Yet he reintroduces class as a historical determinant. Now I find it very difficult to quarrel with that. I think the question of political inflection is a very real problem with a lot of people who have taken the full discursive route. But I don’t think I would advance that critique against Laclau and Mouffe. The new book is quite striking in that it does try to constitute a new politics out of that position. In that sense, it’s very responsible and original. It says, let’s go through the discursive door but then, we still have to act politically. Their problem isn’t politics but history. They have let slip the question of the historical forces which have produced the present, and which continue to function as constraints and determinations on discursive articulation. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 749

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies how ‘discursive’ approaches differ in their treatment of class and historical determination.