In the Name of the Father: The Weight of Inheritance in Oliver Marchart’s "Thinking Antagonism"

Abstract

Oliver Marchart’s new book stretches his political ontology to its logical implications extending and reworking some of the central insights of Ernesto Laclau’s post-Marxism. At the same time, however, Marchart may perhaps be too deferent to, or possibly overly invested in, Laclau’s legacy in ways that threaten to compromise the radical potential of his own reconceptualisation of antagonism. This critical review seeks to uncover in Marchart’s ontology of the political the untapped potential for a radical political stasiology by building on his earlier concept of political difference.