Ideology and post-Marxism

The article traces the emergence within post-Marxism of the notions of antagonism and heterogeneity out of dissatisfaction with the tension exhibited by Marxism between objectivity and class antagonism. The rhetoric of discourse and the representation of antagonistic relations are discussed, and the consequently crucial role of the 'empty signifier' is offered as a unifying name for radically contingent features rather than as a concept with a common core. The political is thus seen as the world of contingent articulations, and it is popular in the sense that it is a nodal re-aggregation of plural demands. Ideology is the representational, metaphorical and precarious closure that stabilizes meaning within specific contexts.