Deliberative democracy vis a vis Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism

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Ignacio Peralta

Abstract

I seek to defend deliberative democracy by subjecting to criticism one of its contenders, Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism. First, I reconstruct the vision that deliberative democracy and populism have about the relationship between the political and truth. Second, I connect the vision each have to the distinction between deliberation and negotiation. Third, I demonstrate that Mouffe, by denying the existence of any relevant relationship between the political and truth, wounds up defending a kind of politics in which negotiation becomes the properly “political” kind of action. I make the argument that this leads to a commodified vision of politics. Lastly, I argue that politics so conceived is highly disfunctional.

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Peralta, I. (2025). Deliberative democracy vis a vis Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism. Revista De Filosofia UCSC, 1(24), 228-255. https://doi.org/10.21703/2735-6353.2025.1.24.2882

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