Radical Democracy in Global Perspective: notes from the pluriverse

In this article we contrast the theoretical tradition of radical democracy developed by Chantal Mouffe with an alternative tradition of radical democracy rooted in the practices of subaltern social movements. While the former is wedded to the context and aspirations of Western modernity, the latter consists of place-based forms of ‘colonial difference’ within the Third and Fourth Worlds that are subalternised by the (aggressively globalising) modern tradition of democracy. Working within a ‘modernity/coloniality’ framework, we contrast these traditions of radical democracy along three main axes: 1) the logic of articulation among diverse struggles and movements; 2) the orientation towards, and aspirations with respect to, the state; and 3) the relation to the global scale and vision of the ‘pluriverse’.