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Virginia Tech

Interrogating post-Marxism: Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, and Žižek

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

According to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, our postmodern era and its correlate political problematic requires a shift in positing socialist strategy. Their wager is that by shifting away from essentialist Marxism, and towards a post-Marxist theory of hegemony which they adapt from Gramsci, the analytic for overturning contemporary hegemony will take the form of a radical democratic politics. My contention is that in shifting away from essentialist Marxism through their post-structuralist deconstructive stance, Laclau and Mouffe overstep and make their analytic for socialist strategy impotent. In order to show where Laclau and Mouffe have gone wrong I use primarily the work of Michel Foucault and Slavoj Žižek in order to demonstrate how a post-structuralist theory of ideology need not be a post-Marxist theory of ideology.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Arts
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Political Science
Department dc:contributor.department
Political Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2009

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Nash, Matthew Austin
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Lavin, Chad D.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Luke, Timothy W.
  • Watson, R. Janell

Subjects

dc:subject × 6

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-12022009-171138
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/46073

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Nash, Matthew Austin. Interrogating post-Marxism: Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, and Žižek. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/46073