Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis (cIDA) Research Seminar

Karl Ekeman (Uppsala University & cIDA visiting fellow): What if populism is not just something ‘they’ do, but that ‘we’ do? On negative empty signifiers and the discursive formation of the ‘Alt-Right’ in 2016

My project, What if populism is not just something ‘they’ do, but that ‘we’ do? – Toward a dynamic theory of populism, reconceives populism not as a trait of political actors but as a political imaginary generated through a rhetorical dynamic between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses. If the constitution of collective ‘we’ depends on designating a ‘they’, then the very act of forming a ‘we’ simultaneously produces a secondary identity that can be rearticulated and mobilized for contrary political purposes. While populism is often seen as a way of constructing a “we”, the project investigates populism as co-generated through hegemonic designations of a “they”. To this end, the project expands the analysis of negatively charged empty signifiers in collective identity formation, emphasizing that just as positively charged empty signifiers consolidate the chains they signify, so too do their negative counterparts. The presentation illustrates the project’s theoretical questions by discussing how the ‘Alt-Right’ was discursively formed in the context of the 2016 US presidential election. The ‘Alt-Right’, I argue, acquired momentum not primarily because its proponents articulated unmet political demands, but due to how ‘Alt-Right’ functioned as a negative empty signifier in hegemonic discourses – a rhetorical condensation that disavowed, as equivalent, internally differentiating micro- and macro-political expressions: disaffected gamers, online troll-subcultures, White Nationalists, and ideological entrepreneurs. I conclude by discussing how this articulatory logic can be situated within theories of post-politics, and on the implications for a dynamic, discourse-theoretical approach to populism.

Jordi Mariné Jubany (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona): The Institution and the Unconscious: The Role of Psychoanalysis in the Social Ontologies of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort

Since Freud's foundational writings on the social dimension of psychoanalysis, the relationship between social institutions and unconscious drives is usually presented in the form of a bidirectional opposition. The disorganizing force of desire is thought to run against the ordering logics of institutions, presenting an insurmountable gap between the social and the psyche. This psycho-social relation also raises questions regarding democratic theory: Are democratic institutions condemned to dissolve themselves due to the disorganizing force of desire? Can we think of an institutional form that does not oppose unconscious drives? My project addresses these questions by re-examining the opposition between social institutions and unconscious drives through an investigation that puts into dialogue psychoanalysis and what Roberto Esposito has named as ‘instituting thought’. Esposito traces this to Merleau-Ponty’s redefinition of institution as a process inherently involving social and collective action. Central to this theorisation is the positing of a form of unconscious collective action that takes part in the life of groups and their determinations —an idea deeply entwined with psychoanalysis. However, the relation between instituting thought and psychoanalysis has remained underexplored. My research fills in this gap by claiming that two of the main representatives of the instituting paradigm, Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort, follow Merleau-Ponty’s project in exploring the relation between the institution and the unconscious. By analysing Castoriadis and Lefort’s rendering of the primordial social institution for psychoanalysis, the Oedipal institution, I argue that their work offers an original framework for rethinking the psychosocial divide and a relevant tool to imagine institutional forms of radical democracy more attuned to its psychic foundations.