Rethinking the people in the post-political era: Political subjectivity in Rancière and Laclau

Date

2026-1-2

Author

Yağcı, Gökhan

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This study addresses the invisibility of the people as a political subject within the framework of diagnoses regarding our living in a post-political era, treating it as a theoretical problem, and explores the possibilities of conceiving the figure of the people as a subject involved in the reconstitution of the political. Post-politics refers to a situation in which the political is suppressed by technocratic administration and governance norms, and antagonism is excluded in the name of consensus. Dependent on a dysfunctional representation, the people, who has become the instrumental figure of legitimacy and the object of political activity, are either depoliticized or reduced to uniform forms. Within this problematic framework, the study discusses the theoretical possibilities of reconceptualizing the people as a political subject by comparing the political theories of Jacques Rancière and Ernesto Laclau. In Rancière, the people is a subject of rupture that disrupts representational structures and enables the reemergence of politics based on equality. In Laclau, the people is a populist subject form constructed discursively and established through representation around a hegemonic empty signifier. The two thinkers’ understandings of political subjectivity offer different but striking possibilities for how the people can be made visible again in the post-political era. In this context, this thesis argues that the political subjectivation of the people in post-political conditions is only possible by considering Rancière’s rupture-based notion of equality and Laclau’s populist/hegemonic articulation logic together.

Subject Keywords

The people, Political subjectivity, Jacques Rancière, Ernesto Laclau

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118270

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis