ELEMENTS OF PROTEST Politics and culture in Laclau's theory of populist reason

By taking Ernesto Laclau's recent book On Populist Reason as its starting point, the article sets out to establish a critical dialogue between Cultural Studies in the Birmingham tradition and political discourse analysis in the Essex School tradition. It is argued that Laclau's notion of antagonism (as a name for the logic by which differential elements are articulated into chains of equivalence) might be useful as the 'missing link' explaining the passage from micro-political forms of resistance, as analyzed by Cultural Studies, to macro-political hegemonic formations, as analyzed in the Essex School tradition. In addition, Laclau's recent theorization of the 'minimal units' of protest discourse - identified by Laclau as demands - may prove productive not only for Cultural Studies but also for discourse analytically informed New Social Movement research.