Post-Marxism: Democracy and Identity

In this article I take issue with the view defended by Habermas and his followers that the critique of rationalism and universalism necessarily undermines the very basis of the modern democratic ideals. I show the important contribution that an anti-essentialist approach can bring to the understanding of the way democratic identities are constituted. I argue that it is only within a framework that relinquishes the epistemological tenets of the Enlightenment that it is possible to come to terms with the nature of pluralism and to reformulate the democratic project in a way that acknowledges the political in its dimension of power and antagonism.