What is The Agonist?

Re-launching my Substack under a new name.

This Substack has been a bit dormant. That’s about to change. With that in mind, I’m re-launching and re-naming this newsletter to better reflect what I hope to share with you in my text and video posts.

Agonism is a somewhat obscure philosophy of democratic conflict and competition, drawing primarily on the theories of the Belgian philosopher Chantal Mouffe. An “agonist” is someone who believes that political conflict and antagonism between friends and enemies is inevitable but that this conflict can (and should) be channeled through democratic competition.

Agonists do not believe that the goal of politics is either unity or consensus. These things are impossible to achieve, except through coercion. And coercion is, well, bad. Agonistic theorists like Mouffe, William Connolly, and Ernesto Laclau view consensus as a threat to a truly democratic politics. “All forms of consensus are by necessity based on acts of exclusion,” Mouffe writes in The Democratic Paradox. Politics is, and should be, confrontational — but within democratic limits. In the coming weeks, I’ll share more about what agonism entails both theory and practice.

For now, I want to say thank you for subscribing and supporting my work. I will be writing in this space more often. I want this to be a place where I can share things — shorter arguments, first drafts, and other “contentions” — that don’t necessarily fit into my weekly column at The Washington Post.

Some posts will be free for all, others will be paywalled. If you like what you read here, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. As a special offer, I’m offering a 30-day free trial as a way of saying thank you.

Your support means a lot, and I hope to engage with more of you in the comments, and for paid subscribers, you can reach out to me directly with the messaging function in the Substack app.

Among other things, I will be sharing challenging and unusual takes on the democratic idea — including extensions of my theory of “democratic minimalism” which I outline in my new book The Problem of Democracy (You can read an excerpt in The Atlantic here— “Can Democracy Exist Without Liberalism?”).

I’m excited about building a community where I can interact, discuss, and debate with readers more directly outside of the chaos of X. I’m not interested in agreement; I’m interested in good faith engagement.

Please feel free to share The Agonist with friends and foes alike.

And, last but not least, a big thank you to

Tara Slade | OmniBrand

for designing the logo and branding for this newsletter. Learn more about the amazing work she does here.