With the climate emergency we have entered a new phase in which the struggle for social justice requires questioning the productivist and extractivist model. Growth has ceased being considered as a source of protection to become a danger to the material conditions of existence of society. It is no longer possible to envisage a process of radicalization of democracy that does not include the end of a model of growth that endangers the existence of society and whose destructive effects are particularly felt by its more vulnerable groups.
In this presentation, Chantal Mouffe intended to argue that at the current crossroads, a project to radicalize democracy requires implementing a left populist strategy whose hegemonic signifier is a Green Democratic Revolution, connecting the defense of the environment with the manifold democratic struggles against different forms of inequality.
Chantal Mouffe is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Westminster in London, where she is also the module leader of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD). She has taught at numerous universities in Europe, North America and Latin America, and has held research positions at Harvard, Cornell, the University of California, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. Currently, she is Albert Hirschman Fellow at the IWM in Vienna.
Ivan Vejvoda, IWM Permanent Fellow, introduced the speaker and moderated the ensuing Q&A.
A recording of the discussion is available here:
