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"Don't they represent us?": A discussion between

Jacques Rancire and Ernesto Laclau
By Kieran O'Connor / 26 May 2015
Is representation necessary, or antithetical, to the democratic will? In

light of the significant gains made by the indignados in the Spanish
municipal and regional elections on Sunday, we publish a discussion
about democracy and representation between Jacques Rancire, the
inspiration for much analysis of the 15-M movement, and Ernesto
Laclau, an important theoretical reference point for Podemos.
Emancipation(s)
by Ernesto Laclau
Laclau argues that the
changes of the late
twentieth century have
altered Enlightenment
notions of emancipation.
8 posts
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On the Shores of Politics

by Jacques Rancire
Returning politics to its
original and necessary
meaning: the organization
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On Populist Reason
by Ernesto Laclau
Major analysis of the
forces that drive populism
and their relation to
democracy.
13 posts
Amador Fernndez-Savater introduces a discussion between the

philosophers Jacques Rancire and Ernesto Laclau. Translated by
David Broder, from El Diario
On 16 October 2012, at the University of San Martn in the Argentinian
capital, the French philosopher Jacques Rancire gave a lecture
entitled "Democracy Today", as part of a week long conference in
Buenos Aires and Rosario organised by UNSAM (Universidad Nacional
de San Martn) and the publisher Tinta Limn.
Hatred of Democracy
by Jacques Rancire
A piercing essay on the
definitions and
redefinitions of the term
democracy. Times
Higher Education
Supplement
9 posts
In this lecture, Rancire expanded on his by now well-known
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elaborations on the question: "Democracy is not a system of

government, but the always conflictual and disruptive manifestation of
the principle of equality". As an example, he describes how the working
classes of the nineteenth century decided to act not as if they were mere
labour power, but people equal to others in their intelligence and
abilities, in their capacity for reading, thinking, writing and
self-organising their labour. In this view democracy is "the
ungovernable" on display, that is to say, an egalitarian activity that
disrupts the hierarchical distribution of spaces, social roles and social
functions, opening up the sphere of what is possible and expanding the
definitions of communal life.
"There is no such thing as a democratic state": such was Rancires
striking comment to an audience with a keen interest in the political
context behind the progressive governments of the region (Venezuela,
Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, etc.). Meaning, there is no possible
institutional translation of this disruptive and expansive political
undercurrent. It can have many consequences in terms of freedoms or
rights; yet "democracy cannot be identified a form of the state; rather,
it denotes a dynamic which is autonomous of place, time, and the state
agenda."
After the lecture, as scheduled, Ernesto Laclau took the floor. A
populist theorist of hegemony, and a key intellectual reference point for
the group that founded and now leads Podemos, Laclau has a great deal
of knowledge of Rancire's work, and has written numerous papers
explaining both his affinities and disagreements with his thinking. Here
we reproduce the short discussion between the two thinkers, as a
stimulus for further thought about the tensions between political and
Contingency, Hegemony,
Universality
by Judith Butler, Ernesto
Laclau, et al.
The Hegelian legacy, Left
strategy, and
post-structuralism versus
Lacanian psychoanalysis.
18 posts
The Making of Political

Identities
Edited by Ernesto Laclau
Abstract and applied
analysis of post-Cold War
political groupings.
8 posts
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state dynamics (or indeed, between 15M and Podemos).
Ernesto Laclau
First of all, I'd like to apologise for missing the first half of Jacques
Rancire's presentationthere was a lot of traffic and, well, all those
kinds of problems. So, unfortunately, I won't be able to respond to
Jacques' contribution in the same way as if I'd had the chance to listen
to the whole of his talk.
Nevertheless, there are a few key topics that the two of us have
discussed on other occasions, and if we were to sum these up with one
theme, I'd say that it is the relationship between democracy and
representation. I think that's where the shades of disagreement
between Jacques' analysis and my own efforts can be found.
What do I think is the problem of representation? The issue is this: if
there is a conflict between democracy and representation, it is because
it is thought that democracy represents a popular identity that
essentially excludes the mechanisms of representation. Rousseau
himself thought that the only true form of democracy was direct
democracy. He had in mind the Geneva of his time, which he thought of
in fairly Utopian terms. But the situation of the major states made the
moment of representation seem inevitable.
New Reflections on the

Revolution of Our Time
by Ernesto Laclau
A critical examination of
social struggle in the
context of late capitalism.
8 posts
Hegemony and Socialist

Strategy
by Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe
A brilliant tour de force of
scholarship and
argument.
Marxism Today
16 posts
So, this raises the following question: Is the principle of representation

oligarchic by necessity? By which I mean, something that is a lesser evil
added on to a democratic principle that would otherwise represent a
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homogenous popular will? I think that this would only be the case if
popular will could be formed entirely outside of the mechanisms of
representation. And that is where I would draw a line. I don't believe
that it is possible to form a democratic will, nor a popular will, except
via the mechanisms of representation.
Why is this? Because the process of representation is a dual one. As
Jacques very rightly pointed out, the principle of representation
implies the possibility of an oligarchic power. But it can also stand for
something else. If, at the level of the social foundations of a system,
there are marginalised sectors with a barely formed will of their own,
representative mechanisms can to an extent act as the vehicle for the
formation of that will. The other day, during the conversation that we
had with Jean-Luc Mlenchon (the leader of the Front de Gauche) here
in Buenos Aires, we said that the problem with the anarchic democratic
forms that we see today (for example the indignados in Spain) is that if
that will doesn't translate into the restructuring of the political system
then it becomes dispersed.
In other words, I don't see that there is a democratic principle opposed
to the principle of representation, but instead a political construction
process which cuts across the moment of the basic formation of the
popular will and the moment of representation. If we think of the way
that the question of universality and totality has been raised in political
theory, it is clear that Hegel saw the state as the only point at which the
universal nature of the political community is constituted. This is
because civil society is the domain of the logic of private interest, of
what he called the "system of needs". There would therefore be an
absolutely clear separation between the moment of (statist) totality and
Staging the People

by Jacques Rancire
Rancire's classic essays
from the 1970s, as he was
developing his distinctive
method.
8 posts
The Emancipated
Spectator
by Jacques Rancire
The foremost philosopher
of art argues for a new
politics of looking.
12 posts
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(private) dispersion. Marx disagreed and argued instead that the state
is a sphere of particularity because it is the instrument of the ruling
class, and only if a class were to emerge which is in and of itself
universali.e. emerging at the level of civil societywould it be
possible to overcome this fragmentation and particularity. For Marx
this would mean the end of politics and the gradual extinction of stateforms.
If we look to Gramsci, we can see an intermediate point, which for me
is the beginning of an adequate political framework for addressing this
question. Gramsci agreed with Marx that civil society is also a point for
the construction of the universal, but that Hegel was right in saying that
this universal moment was a political moment. And for this reason
Gramsci talked about the "integral state".
The problem I have with democracy in this sense, accepting in part
Jacques' argument whilst allowing for some points of contention, is that
there need to be forms of political mediation that cut across the
distinction between the state and civil society. Anything that
contributes to the radicalisation of the distinction between these two
terms leads either towards a vacuous parliamentary social democracy,
if one emphasises the purely statist moment, or else towards the ultralibertarianism of a mythical popular will constituted entirely outside of
the state.
Proletarian Nights
by Jacques Rancire
A classic text by Rancire
on the intellectual thought
of French workers in the
19th century.
11 posts
Politics and Ideology in

Marxist Theory
by Ernesto Laclau
Analysis of the role of
ideology in political
movements.
8 posts
I believe that in a way the Latin American democracies, which are

currently works in progress, are an attempt to transcend these tensions
and are perhaps the best way to exemplify what is fundamental to
Gramsci's insights regarding the war of position, hegemony, and the
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integral state. Well, Jacques, I will leave you with these minor
provocations, so you can respond to the point in question and then
make way for the general will of the public (laughter).
Jacques Rancire
First of all, I'd like to clarify one point for the discussion. For me it is
not at all a question of setting out the principle of direct democracy as a
homogenous popular will. In fact I'm not coming from the standpoint of
this search for a homogenous popular will, nor exactly from the conflict
between representation and direct democracy. Essentially, in my work
I have raised the question of what is a political power and why a power,
in order to be political, must to some extent integrate the democratic
principle of equality.
Power has always existed and there are many forms of power which are
not political: the power of the boss, of the teacher, the owner, the
master... They are private powers, relations of authority with social
functions. What interests me is how to establish, in general terms, the
idea itself of politics. And what really interests me is the way in which
the democratic principle functions in itself as a challenge to the
principle of the state. Because the principle of the state, in spite of
everything, always functioned as a principle of confiscation and
privatisation of collective power.
Aisthesis
by Jacques Rancire
Rancires magnum opus
on the aesthetic
13 posts
The Rhetorical
Foundations of Society
by Ernesto Laclau
Coauthor of Hegemony
and Socialist Strategy
shows how rhetoric
constitutes the social
order
11 posts
To consider the theme of representation we have to start from the fact

that today, not denying the very different and impressive situation in
Argentina, at least in European countries the representative principle
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of the state is completely integrated into the oligarchic mechanisms

that it reproduces. It certainly does not function as a means for building
a popular will. Perhaps that's how it used to be in the European states
of the past, but not any more. Representation is all but obsolete. That
would be my first point.
Secondly, it is important to note that whilst we may be in agreement on
the dual, or two-faced nature of the representative system, one has to
look at which side the scales will fall. I obviously prefer a system to be
representative, with short, non-renewable and non-cumulative terms
of office, etc., than otherwise. And if we're talking about Latin
American democracies, I can't conceive of a democratic regime if every
six years we have to elect the same president (that is, in Venezuela). I
believe that a democratic president is one who does their work and
then leaves. And who hands over power to someone other than
themselves because otherwise what we are dealing with is a
privatisation of power.
Lastly, I wonder if we need to keep thinking in terms of the state versus
civil society. In terms of this Hegelian logic where, on one side there is
civil society (the private), and on the other the universal state, etc.
Things don't work like that now. You said it yourself to some extent: in
spite of everything, the state is increasingly a principle of privatisation,
and the state absorbs representation. It isn't about trying to oppose
representation with the people directly presenting themselves in the
streets. As it stands, the only means of opposing this permanent
privatisation by the state are effectively the forms of autonomous
protest by the people, an autonomous presence by the people. The only
way to avoid there just being the state and the representative model
The Intervals of Cinema

by Jacques Rancire
An essential analysis of
cinema from one of the
great figures of French
philosophy
9 posts
Politics in a Time of Crisis

by Pablo Iglesias
Iglesias and his Podemos
party are radically shaking
up Spains political
establishment. New
York Times
59 posts
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which it absorbs, is for there to be another power with autonomous

forms of existence. I'm not talking about a mass of people united by a
homogenous will, but instead a strong movement of action which
embodies a power which is the power of everybody and anybody. That
is the very principle of existence and democracy and politics. And for
me that is what is most essential today.
Following directly on, there are a couple of questions that question the
distinction and opposition between democratic logic and state logic,
giving current examples from Argentina (in 2012, that is). On one
hand, the "Ley de Medios" (the Media Law) via which audiovisual
monopolies (for example, the Clarn groups monopoly) are regulated.
On the other, conservative or reactionary elements protesting against
the Kirchner government taking to the streets. These examples are
cited to show situations in which the state struggles against oligarchy
whilst the people in the occupied streets defend itexamples that
supposedly throw into question or complicate the analysis proposed
by Rancire.
Jacques Rancire
It is perfectly obvious that anybody can occupy the street and we have
seen groups trying to use that position to impose private interests. I'm
not saying that when people occupy the street that they are "the
people", nor that everything that is spoken from the street is a good
thing. There is the particular situation in several Latin American
countries where states have attempted to impose constraints on certain
economic influences and I am not against that.
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But what seems fundamental to me is to discern whether the state

limits itself to taking the minimal steps required of it or if it is really
providing, in a wider sense, the means for another form of expression,
for another expression. This would be the only way for us to escape the
fight setting powerful interests and the state against each other as the
only political actors. All the same, it's certainly true that, there, Latin
America has a certain particularity as compared to Europe, where
there is an almost total integration of political power (the state,
parliamentary representatiion) and financial power.
What does it mean to say "the power of anybody"? It means to take
action in accordance with a capacity that belongs to everybody, to
anybody. If you take to the streets to defend the rights of the company
Clarn, you aren't taking to the streets in the name of the democratic
principle, but rather in the name of other principles: that there are
those who are in the know and those who aren't, etc. It doesn't mean
that whoever takes to the streets will be in the right. Speaking of the
power of anybody is to take the side of the universal. The power of
anybody means that there is a capacity that cannot be monopolized by
any one group, be it the oligarchy or the "working class", who claims it
as their own. There is no single group which represents the universal
capacity, that of politics. There are principles we can use to think
through this "anybody". We can ask ourselves, what is the principle of
action that is playing out, in the here and now? So we have to set in
motion a series of forms of investigation and assessment to put this
differentiation to the test, to discern whether this "anybody" is a
universal form or one of private interests.
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Another question from the floor asks whether it is possible to really

live in a true democracy or if we are always going to be living under
oligarchies that dominate us, interspersed with brief intervals of
popular protest.
Jacques Rancire
What the future holds for us, I don't have the faintest idea. The point
for me is to see that the present opens or closes doors to different
futures, to think of the present as that which opens and closes these
doors. There are those that think, like Tiqqun or the Invisible
Committee, that only a type of catastrophe could pave the way for
liberation. Then there is Toni Negri, for his part, who thinks that it is
the very process of work under capitalist conditions that creates the
conditions for future communism. There are groups who argue that
objective conditions have to mature, that we have to create vanguards,
and that in five thousand years the true revolution will come, etc.
To all of this I say No. I insist upon this alternative popular presence in
response to the confiscation of the power of everyone by the state, or by
powers associated with financial powers. The primary condition for
another future is that we expand in the here and now the spheres of
initiative based on a shared way of thinking, ways of shared decisionmaking, pockets of autonomy that can empower anybody. Where are
the conditions for other futures that will not be a reproduction of the
present? Here, in the present. Where will this lead? I do not know.
What I do know is that an alternative to the present can be reached
through the creation of other autonomous pockets of power and
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expression, of other ways of using the capacities of the anonymous.

That is to say, by maintaining and renewing the forms of existence of a
power that is not oligarchic.
Ernesto Laclau
I am going to make another contribution to the general confusion, by
saying the following: Derrida and Deleuze both focused part of their
analysis on the relationship of representation. Ostensibly they claim the
opposite, but I think that this is what they are doing. Deleuze says that
"representation presupposes presentation, but since this original
presentation never appears, the representation too lacks meaning"
Derrida says: "since no original presentation exists, all that exist are
games of representation". This Derridean "presentation" introduces
more possibilities for political analysis. It becomes clear that in a sense,
where representation is concerned there is nothing "outside of the
text". There is no radical "outside" of the field of representative politics.
The construction of oppositions will have to be made from within the
field of logic of representation.
This logic of representation can lead to oligarchic forms. Or
alternatively, through the strategies that can be developed within the
field of representation, a more radical democracy can be initiated. I
don't share the opinion that democracy exists outside of politics and
that politics is something opposed to the state. Excepting, of course, the
state in its current forms. But there is something in statist logic that
escapes the already crystallised states that we are up against. It is the
"part for those who have no part" which Jacques talks about, that is to
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say, the people who are at war with the system and that need to be
brought to participate and have a voice through different means. All the
same, I believe that this necessarily passes through a political
construction process and through representative mechanisms.
Jacques Rancire
I don't believe that there are original presentations, nor an original
"people", nor an original popular willbe it voluntary or homogenous.
Of course there aren't. But there will always be people who take to the
streets and say "we are the people" and this for me is democracy. Not in
terms of all the people being united there in a literal sense, but rather
that a "figure of the people" presents itself there. A "figure of the
people" is the enactment of the capacity that does not belong to any
particular group, to any particular vanguard, nor to any particular
political science, but rather to the capacity of everybody, of anybody.
There is no such thing as political science, there is only governmental
science. And it is commonly thought that governmental science (or the
science of the polls) is political science. But really there are no political
sciences, only presentations, presentations of politics, cases. Perhaps
we call these representations, but we need to be careful of possible
ambiguities here, because what they call representationthat is, the
electoral gameis only one amongst various forms of presentation.
There have to be others: the autonomous forms of presentation of an
alternative power, above all when the parliamentary type of
representation has become almost obsolete. And that must be made
crystal clear.
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- Many thanks to Mariela Singer, Vernica Gago and Jordi Carmona,

without whose contributions this article would not have been possible.
Visit El Diario to read the full text in French.
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Recently mentioned authors

40 years of radical publishing

"Don't they represent us?": A discussion between

Is representation necessary, or antithetical, to the democratic will? In

Recently mentioned books

On the Shores of Politics

#Trans on the Verso blog

40 years of radical publishing

Amador Fernndez-Savater introduces a discussion between the

In this lecture, Rancire expanded on his by now well-known

elaborations on the question: "Democracy is not a system of

The Making of Political

state dynamics (or indeed, between 15M and Podemos).

New Reflections on the

Hegemony and Socialist

So, this raises the following question: Is the principle of representation

Staging the People

Politics and Ideology in

I believe that in a way the Latin American democracies, which are

To consider the theme of representation we have to start from the fact

of the state is completely integrated into the oligarchic mechanisms

The Intervals of Cinema

Politics in a Time of Crisis

which it absorbs, is for there to be another power with autonomous

But what seems fundamental to me is to discern whether the state

Another question from the floor asks whether it is possible to really

expression, of other ways of using the capacities of the anonymous.

- Many thanks to Mariela Singer, Vernica Gago and Jordi Carmona,

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