Ernesto Laclau

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Ernesto Laclau (b. 1935) is an Argentinian political theorist often described as post-Marxist. He is a professor at the University of Essex where he holds a chair in Political Theory and was for many years director of the doctoral Programme in Ideology and Discourse Analysis. He has lectured extensively in many universities in North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Australia and South Africa. Recently, he left The University at Buffalo and now teaches at Northwestern University.

Laclau's most important book is Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, which he co-authored with Chantal Mouffe. Their thought is usually described as post-Marxist as they were both politically active in the social and student movements of the 1960s and thus tried to join working class and new social movements. They rejected Marxist economic determinism and the notion of class struggle being the crucial antagonism in society. Instead they urged for radical democracy of agonistic pluralism where all antagonisms could be expressed.

[edit] Books

Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (NLB, 1977)
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (with Chantal Mouffe) (Verso, 1985)
New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time (Verso, 1990)
The Making of Political Identities (editor) (Verso, 1994)
Emancipation(s) (Verso, 1996)
Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (with Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek) (Verso, 2000)
On Populist Reason (Verso, 2005)
Elusive Universality (Routledge, forthcoming 2007)