Environment and Planning />.

* Society and Space 1995, volume 13, pages 283-288

Thinking radical democracy spatially1

Dorccn Masscy
Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, England
Received 15 August 1994

Abstract, In this paper I reflect upon the project of radical democracy as developed by Chantal
Motiffc and Ernesto Laclau, and in particular on Mouffc's article "Post-Marxism, democracy and
identity". In the first part of the paper I consider some interesting parallels between the project
of radical democracy and certain recent lines of thought within geography, and argue that the
two areas of work could helpfully inform each other. In the second part of the paper I raise
some general issues about radical democracy, including questions of identity, anti-c&scntialism and
universalism.
Chantal Mouffc's paper (1995) is a stimulating, and extremely useful, distillation of
lines of thought, developed over many years, around the project of radical democracy.
Moreover, the project itself is an exemplary instance of the intimate relations which
exist between fundamental issues of theory and conceptualisation and some of the
most directly political issues of our times. The reflections set out in the second part
of this paper are intended directly to address aspects of this link between conceptualisation and politics.
Before taking up those issues, however, in the first part of the paper I examine
the relation (or potential for relation) between the project of radical democracy and
some recent debates within geography. Mouffe's work, including her writing with
Ernesto Laclau, has been increasingly cited by geographers in recent years, but most
of this citation has been in specific reference to Mouffe and Laclau's own central
concerns: with a reformulation of Marxist categories, with identity, and with political subjectivity. As well as these connections, however, there exist potential linkages
around questions of spatiality itself.
Geography and radical democracy
Within the project of radical democracy there are a number of crucial arguments
which bear within them the potential for dialogue between that project and some of
our concerns as geographers. Chief among these points I would highlight the
following:
(a) the processual constitution of identity through interrelations,
(b) the fact of the constant remaking of those identities,
(c) the insistence that power is not an external relation 'taking place' between
already preconstituted identities, but that it is part and parcel of the constitution of
those identities themselves,
(d) the insistence on the constitutive outside and the necessary presence of the other
within.
The immediate resonance of these themes for geographers is in debates over the
conceptualisation of two of the central terms of the discipline: space and place.
t Presented at a session on "Post-Marxism, Democracy, and Identity", organized by the Socialist,
Urban, and Political Specialty Groups at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American
Geographers, San Francisco, CA, 1 April 1994.

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D Massey

One of the most powerful ways in which social space can be conceptualised is as
constituted out of social relations, social interactions, and for that reason always
and everywhere an expression and a medium of power. Moreover, if space is indeed
conceptualised in that way, then it is possible to think the identity of place precisely
in terms of being the product of a particular set, a particular articulation, of those
power-filled social relations.(1)
This formulation of the idea of 'place' has many parallels to Mouffe's conceptualisation of identity: what is at issue in the geographical field is the construction of
spatial difference (and thus, for instance, the nature of differentiated places) through
the articulation of spatialised social relations. Moreover, that formulation enables
effects precisely parallel to the effects of Mouffe's argument for the sociopolitical
field conceived aspatially. Thus it allows the problematisation of claims (so frequent
and so troubling today) to authentic/internalised/eternalised identities of place. It
allows an insistence upon the forever unachieved (or not fully achieved, in the sense
of closure) nature of the identity of place. It enables the problematisation of any
attempt at the construction of the identities of place as singular, bounded, static.
And it opens up the possibility of talking about the presence of the global in the
local. In this age of re-emerging essentialist nationalisms and place-loyalties, such
things are urgently in need of saying (though saying them will not of itself produce
change).
There are, then, many parallels between the projects, perhaps most particularly
in relation to the manner of conceptualisation: in Mouffe's case the conceptualisation of power and identity or political subjectivity and in geography's case the
conceptualisation of space and place. Indeed, rather than just a parallel development, in which we exchange occasional notes of mutual appreciation, I should like
to suggest that there could also be a constructive exchange between the two projects
in which each could add some insight to the other. Mouffe's work is already becoming well known in geography and has already been provocative of new thinking.
Thus, for instance, it has the potential to enable a clearer approach to the spatiality
of power and to the relation of that with the construction of identity. I shall draw
on this in the discussion below.
But since the focus here is on Mouffe's paper, let us concentrate on the possibilities for geography (that is, in the most general of terms, a concern for spatiality)
feeding into the project of radical democracy. (The geography discipline has a long
history of drawing on the work of other disciplinesperhaps it is about time we
gave something back!) It is probably fair to say that political theory more broadly
has sometimes been a rather aspatial enterprise: it has not thought its object of
study in explicitly spatialised terms. This is certainly true of the debate around
radical democracy. There are ways, however, in which bringing spatiality into that
debate might help fill out and specify the argument. This is particularly the case in
relation to the question of the construction of identities. Thus, Mouffe's work
examines, very productively, the intersection ofthe mutual construction ofpower
and identity. To this pair of terms it is possible to add a third: space/spatiality.
Once again, the relation between the terms is one of mutual construction: the three
are interrelated. Thus, power is inherent in the social interrelations which construct
both social identity (Mouffe's argument, in relation to radical democracy) and social
space and place (the argument within geography). So power is integral in both of
the other terms. But soI want to argueis space/spatiality. On the one hand, the
definition of space as constituted out of power-filled social relations can also be
(1)

These points are developed in Massey (1994).

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285

read in the opposite direction. That is to say, the social relations which arc the
medium and the form of power are necessarily spatialised. They have spatial form
and exist in spatial relation to other relations and to the objects/identities which
they constitute. So power is (necessarily) spatialised. On the other hand, the identities, including the political identities, on which the project of radical democracy
focuses are themselves formed in a spatialised interlocking of power-filled social
relations. In other words, the relationship works the other way too; spatiality is also
implicated in the accomplishment of difference and identity. The nature of the
spatiality of power, in other words, may have effects. Moreover, and potentially of
equal sociopolitical significance, we make our spaces/spatialities in the process of
constructing our various identities. There are then two sides to the question of
relating spatiality to radical democracy. On the one hand, spatiality can be a key
moment in the constitution of political subjectivities and collectivities.{2) On the
other hand, there is the issue of how we might integrate thinking about the spatial
organisation of society into a political project for a radical democratic future.
The first of these issues is the easier to address. Mouffe herself comments
briefly at the end of her paper on the question of national identity, and there is of
course much work already on the projects of construction of those specifically spatial
forms of political identification. In an extreme form, it is precisely such an intersection of space/powcr/identity which is distilled in the current battle over the question
'what is Serbia?' However, the intimate intersection of these three terms is also at
the heart of quite other definitions: of 'exclusive' suburbs, of gangland territories
within urban areas, of no-go time-spaces within housing estates. This last example
refers to the intricate interweaving of space, power, and identity on large estates of
public housing in the United Kingdom, and on which rioting took place in the early
1990s. While these estates are often conceived of as single political constituencies
(by police, by political parties, and by social workers), Bea Campbell has explored
how they in fact contain a multiplicity of constituencies, quite often in conflict with
each other. What is significant to the argument here is that these conflicting identities
are held together, and joined in conflict with each other, through powerful delineations of time-space. (3) More generally, there is the work of Sibley (1988; 1992) on
geographies of rejection, of Sennett (1971) on the spaces of purified identity, and of
Robins (1991) on the spatial problems of postmodern identities. The second issue
is that, as all those writers suggest, both political identities and the spatialities which
may be part of their basis, may be established either through relations which are
'democratic' or through relations characterised by a range of forms of dominance
and subordination. It is, perhaps, not an issue which can be addressed at the abstract
level; but at the level of practical politics there is an importantand fascinatingquestion of what the 'geography of power' in a radical democracy might look like.
Relections on the project of radical democracy
Mouffe writes that "according to such a perspective, political practice in a democratic
society does not consist in defending the rights of preconstituted identities, but
rather in constituting those identities themselves in a precarious and always vulnerable
terrain" (1995, page 261). As I have already indicated, this is a formulation which
(2> The degree, and nature, of the significance of spatiality in the establishment of specific
political identities will vary from situation to situation, and has in each case to be established
empirically.
(3)
The original book is Campbell's Goliath: Britain's Dangerous Places (1993). The specifically
time-space aspects of this are explored in Massey (forthcoming).

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has important and positive parallels with geographical debate. There is one proviso,
however, which arises particularly from the formulation of the point in this paper.(4)
Thus, to formulate the lack of preconstitution in this way serves mainly to emphasise
the issue of nonessentialism. In other words, it emphasises the point that political
agents do not bring already appropriately constituted identities into each specific
political arena. This is an important point, and an important rhetorical function.
However, the formulation could be taken to imply that the past is a blank sheet;
that what happens is the instantaneous formation of wholly new identities in each
situation. This is clearly not so. Political subjects are indeed constituted in political
practice, but they are not constructed out of nothing. On the contrary, there is
always a history which, in one guise or another, is brought to each situation of political practice. [Moreover, and to return to the issue of the relation with geography,
exactly the same can be said of the identity of place: it is one of the functions
performed by the concept of 'layers' in the spatial-divisons-of-labour approach to
the uniqueness of place. In the field of cultural identity and ethnicity, this negotiation between essentialism, on the one hand, and an unlocated and historyless
immediacy, on the other hand, is exactly what is at issue in Paul Gilroy's formulation of the notion of "the changing same" (1993)(5).] In other words, the argument as
posed here by Mouffe could be enriched by embedding it in a more explicit
temporal dimensionthat (nonessentialist) new identities are formed on the basis of,
in the context of, even on the ruins of, a legacy of past and coexisting present identities. Indeed a knowledge of this must surely be important in political practice:
Mrs Thatcher knew only too well how to touch those changing, latent, formations
and bring them to the surface as new political identities.
A second reflection concerns the status of the critique of essentialism. From
where does this critique stem? Does it have its roots within 'theory', or does it stem
from an assessment of its political potential? This is a question which Mouffe's
paper, implicitly, poses sharply: but it is also a question which I ask of myself. Like
Mouffe I argue an anti-essentialist position. Yet I am aware that the basis for this,
as with many other feminists and people working around sexual politics, is perhaps
in the end a gut political feeling that it is necessary always to hold open the possibility
of change. However, as Dollimore (1991) and others have shown, a pro-essentialist
position can just as well be mobilised for reasons which are equally political and, at
least arguably, equally 'progressive'. This question is of particular relevance here
because Mouffe's paper opens with a consideration of the interplay between a critique
of essentialism and a critique of rationalism. One of the implications of the critique of
essentialism is a parallel critique of rationalism as epistemological self-grounding, its
"illusion of providing itself with its own foundations" (Mouffe, 1995, page 260). If
we accept this (which I do), then anti-essentialism itself cannot be self-grounded.
This leaves a problem. In Mouffe's paper it is a problem which poses itself from the
moment of the initial assumption. But, as indicated above, it is also an issue which
all of us involved in this debate and those who would espouse a position of antiessentialism must face. On what grounds can anti-essentialism be based? In order
to avoid the circularities of rationalism which Mouffe so effectively demolishes it
seems necessary to accept that, while these grounds may not be 'political' in the
immediate sense, they are likely to be related to the political in its broadest meanings. This is not a criticism: it is, rather, a reflection that the clarity of the debate
might be improved if this point were generally to be addressed more explicitly.
W Some of these points are explored more fully in Mouffe (1993).
See also, for these connections with Gilroy's argument, Massey and Jess (forthcoming).

(5)

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Thirdly, and finally, there remain some issues concerning the notion of 'radical
democracy' itself. A first, and perhaps tentative, enquiry concerns the need to
establish more clearly and fully what it might actually mean in practice. It needs to
be specified more, even if that specification will necessarily have to be particularised. Indeed, as indicated below, working it through in the particularity of specific
situations can only serve further to explore and strengthen the project.
More substantially, however, there are some questions concerning the way in
which the notion of consensus functions in Mouffe's paper. At one point Mouffe
writes 'This question [the fundamental question for democratic politics), pace the
rationalists, is not how to arrive at a rational consensus reached without exclusion,
or in other words how to establish an 'us' which would not have a corresponding
'them'. This is impossible because there cannot exist an 'us' without a 'them'"
(1995, page 263).
A whole complex of queries arises from this formulation. To begin with, the
grounds for the rejection of the possibility of a rational consensus, as stated here,
are not the implicit assumption of the power and effectivity of rationality, but the
impossibility of an all-inclusive consensus because such a thing would imply an us
without a them. Posing the argument in this way raises two questions. First, elsewhere it is the argument against the rational character of such a proposed consensus
which Mouffe has stressed, in arguments directed against Habermas and Rawls.
And it seems to me that this would have been the more effective argument to
deploy here. The reason for this is, second, that there are objections which could
be raised to this particular mobilisation of the mutual necessity of 'us' and 'them'
(Derrida's constitutive outside). For we are talking here of political communities,
and such communities canfrequently dothemselves constitute an 4us' (the consensus) defined by the 'them' beyond. Such a political community could be a
working cooperative or even a nation-state ("we British with our ancient democratic
traditions, the Mother of Parliaments, etc, etc"in other words, "we do things in our
particular way here, differently from the ways of others"). In principle, the notion of
political community could even operate (let us be hugely optimistic here) at the level
of the human species, defined precisely by participation in a democratic political
community, with the us then unfortunately depending upon the mobilisation of those
old, old dualisms of Humanity versus The Rest, Culture versus Nature, and so on.
Now, the reason this query becomes significant is that a little later in Mouffe's
paper she argues that "pluralist democracy demands not only consensus on a set of
common political principles but also the presence of dissent and institutions through
which such divisions can be manifested" (1995, page 263). There is a problem of
interpretation here. If it is assumed that a consensus can be reached on these founding
"common political principles" (and that the dissent will operate, and be conducted
within, the framework provided by those principles), then the formulation runs into
precisely the problems of an 'us' and a 'them' (though here in relation to the grammar
of political conduct rather than a more substantive politicsif the two can be so
easily divorced) that Mouffe raised in the previous argument for the impossibility of
consensus. Such a position seems unlikely given Mouffe's wider stance. However, if
the contrary position is the case and the dissent referred to includes dissent even
about the common political principles, then it is necessary to explain through what
political forms this will be handled and how these will be agreed upon.(6)
(6)

My suspicion is that, in order to address this issue, it is necessary to mobilise the difference
Chantal Mouffe has elsewhere postulated between an enemy and an adversary (see Mouffe,
1993). But this itself raises issues of cultural differentiation in the distinction between these
twowhich relates to my next, and final point.

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Finally, and in different ways linking all of these points together, it is important
to specify how 'universalising' is this commitment to radical democracy. This is a
question which refers to both historical and intercultural variations. How eternal is
radical democracy as a political principle? How much can its concrete form vary
between cultures with different histories, different values, and different commitments? How much can the line between enemy and adversary [see footnote (6)] vary
before the boundaries of 'radical democracy' are overstepped? Clearly, one of the
strengths of Mouffe's argument is that 'democracy', liberty', and 'equality' are
historically and culturally contingent in the sense that their operational meanings
may vary. However, their meaning cannot be infinitely elastic, or else there would
be no meaning at all. It therefore remains necessary to enquire whether there are
some contexts where radical democracy (however defined) would not be the most
appropriate political aim? What is the reply to those who claim cultural specificity
as the basis for adhering to other principles entirely? In other words, is there a way
of avoiding the possibility of a hegemonising cultural specificity in the promulgation of
the project of radical democracy? These are complex issues and they are not
specific to the project of radical democracy: they face all who would both espouse a
commitment to a respect for difference and hold on to a broad vision of the direction of social and political progress.
Acknowledgments. Thanks to Chantal Mouffe with whom, in fact, I have on-going discussions
about these issues. Thanks also for very constructive comments from an anonymous referee.
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1995 a Pion publication printed in Great Britain