민주주의와 한국 사회: 샹탈 무페 교수와의 대담

Abstract

This interview lays out the critical reasoning underlying a diversity of arguments for radical democracy using agonism as an alternative to irreconcilable antagonism as well as abstract neutrality. This critical reasoning of agonistic democracy appeals to the constructive effects of democratic conflict which has been unduly neglected in liberal democracy or precariously oppressed in deliberative democracy. However, it has been argued that the common reasoning of agonistic democracy tends to emphasize the positive aspect of democratic contestation as a self-regulative practice, while it tends to neglect the negative aspect of democratic contestation as a destructive practice that escalates by degrees of antagonism as well as ambition. Not every democratic contestation is likely to create a salutary reciprocity: civic trust within which democratic contestation is restricted are not enough to guard sociopolitical conflict against self-destructive passions. Nor is the condemnation of the possible connection between power-lust and corruption sufficient to reduce the destructive aspect of democratic contestation. Being concerned with these criticisms on agonistic democracy, this interview with Chantal Mouffe aims at investigating her project of radical democracy in three aspects: the plausibility of radical democracy with respect to its differences from deliberative democracy as well as power politics, the realization of agonistic politics without harming the plurality of human values or without resorting to liberal constitutionalism, and the applicability of agonistic contestation especially in South Korea which is experiencing both political indifference and ideological antagonism.