Rawls’s model erases the legitimate struggle among adversaries over liberal values.

Evidence

What Rawls’s view of the well-ordered society eliminates is the democratic struggle among ‘adversaries’, that is, those who share the allegiance to the liberal-democratic principles, but while defending different interpretations of what liberty and equality should mean and to which kind of social relations and institutions they should apply. This is why in his ‘liberal utopia’ legitimate dissent would have been eradicated from the public sphere. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 131

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the category of ‘adversary’: one who shares allegiance to liberal-democratic principles yet contests their interpretation.
• QUESTION: The reader is testing whether a non-exclusionary ‘we’ can exist without a permanent Enemy; this adversary definition is the central conceptual candidate.
• XREF: connects to: Rawls’s well-ordered society erases the adversary and expels legitimate opposition from the public sphere — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 69; Rawls’s well-ordered society erases the adversary from democratic politics. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 69

Broader Connections

• Rawls’s well-ordered society erases the adversary from democratic politics. #corroborates (0.90) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 69