"The dissertation discusses two different views of democratic politics from the standpoint of the problem of increasing democratic participation in a context of conflict, inequality, and domination. The two philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Ernesto Laclau draw on different conceptions of language. Their concern with language includes the recognition that power is always mediated through language. We focus on deliberative democracy developed by Jürgen Habermas and hegemonic democracy developed by Ernesto Laclau. We contrast these perspectives and assess them primarily in how they serve the political contestation essential to democratic politics in specific. The four terms of analysis are power, participation, performativity (symmetry/asymmetry) and grounds for criticism (conception of the good society and democratic norms). Both philosophers respond to the historical context of unresolved theoretical questions within Marxism and in terms of historical conditions which Marx did not anticipate. The second chapter deals with the historical milieu of Marx's engagement with democracy and the issues that arise in its application. It is in response to this context that they bring in language to account for how democratic movements can coalesce and people can be involved in the democratic process. Habermas addresses this with communicative action and Laclau does so through hegemony. The third and fourth chapters deal with each philosopher. The deliberative democracy of Habermas builds on the simple recognition that the goal of language, seen in the agreements we reach daily, is to reach an understanding. This offers the true possibility of participatory democracy. People bring a variety of interests into a dialogue from which emerge interests that are generalized and help shape the process of democratic will-formation. The hegemonic democracy of Laclau builds on poststructural language theory organized around difference that does not privilege reason. For Laclau, the democratic power struggle follows the linguistic pattern of forming 'empty signifiers' out of social demands and appropriating 'floating signifiers' in contestation between hegemonic projects. This is an unstable process that seeks to dislocate power. Laclau's hegemonic democracy offers a challenge to Habermas' deliberative democracy which attempts to privilege reason in order to contain the mix of forces such that the best argument prevails in an unforced agreement. In the end, hegemonic democracy does not offer sufficient direction toward participatory democracy. The contestation in the deliberative democracy of Habermas through the reciprocity of offering validity claims to one another is the reciprocity that makes democracy possible. It promotes space for the democratic contestation among diverse visions of the good society, such that it affirms contextual location of specific viewpoints along with the context-transcending possibility of agreement to democratic norms on the way to a good society for all. This is the ongoing conversation of democratic contestation."--Pages ii-iii.
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