Laclau on misunderstanding and the genesis of collective identity

The logic of difference

Laclau’s analysis of the nature and formation of collective identities starts, not from a singular fixed identity that members of the collective share or express in different ways, but from pluralism per se (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 140). There is, in other words, ‘social heterogeneity’ (2005b: 140), with the basic unit of interaction being orientated around the articulation of a ‘social demand’ (2005b: 73). In On Populist Reason, Laclau nuances this further by distinguishing between demands, which for reasons to be outlined are responsible for the genesis of a group, and sectional requests, which describe the requests of an already established group towards a particular institution (2005b: 73). If those requests are not satisfied, they may intersect with other requests – Laclau gives the example of requests for housing from recent migrants to an industrial city melding with ‘other, equally unsatisfied demands – problems with water, health, schooling, and so on’ (2005b: 73) – to start to form an equivalential chain. The key point is that if those requests are not fulfilled, they may – the point at which they will is unspecifiable – morph into demands. Importantly, demands which remain isolated are called ‘democratic demand[s]’ (2005b: 74), while ‘A plurality of demands which, through their equivalential articulation, constitute a broader social subjectivity we will call popular demands [that] start, at a very incipient level, to constitute the “people” as a potential historical actor’ (2005b: 74). It is through the establishment of popular demands that Laclau maintains social change can occur because they can challenge and disrupt the established hegemonic order.

It has been questioned whether Laclau’s reliance on demand as the basic unity of social analysis is sufficient, with at least one commentator noting that it appears to leave unquestioned the issue as to why particular groups demand what they do; an issue that can only be resolved through an analysis of desire that is missing from Laclau’s thinking (Zicman de Barros, 2020). Laclau would, however, presumably respond that not only is such a request itself based on a demand but its demand emanates from a certain privileging of a foundational subject that fails to understand that, far from being primary, the subject is itself a social creation. As such, Laclau decentres the subject from a foundational point to, instead, think in terms of the inter-relational articulations constitutive of social formations. Importantly, Laclau ties such articulations to antagonism, which is not understood as a fundamentally ontic conflictual activity between two actors, but as an ontological concept with ontic importance.

Space constraints mean that I can only offer a brief sketch of Laclau’s conception of antagonism (for a fuller treatment, see Laclau, 2014; Biglieri and Perreló, 2011; Devenney, 2016; Marchart, 2018), but needless to say it is fundamental for his political ontology. It does not, however, describe a conflict between two pre-established positions, but is that from and through which such positions are created and sustained (Laclau, 2014: 102). It is, in other words, an ontological concept that sustains and maintains the ontic, empirical level. For this reason, Andrew Norris’s claim that, with this notion, Laclau ‘celebrates violence’ (2006: 112) is incorrect. Not only is antagonism not the same as violence, if by this is meant physical violence, but Laclau’s analysis is not a normative one that prescribes the affirmation of antagonism/violence at the ontic level. Laclau employs a technical use of the term that aims to offer an ontological description of the constituting ground of identity, in which, rather than being grounded in a peaceful, coherent, harmonious, and static substance, antagonism acts as the limit that prevents such objective substance and categories from forming. Such ontological excess is necessary to permit the possibility of change; after all, if the ontic level was constituted by fixed meanings and substances, there would be no such possibility – things would and could only be as they are. For this reason, antagonism denotes not the conflict between oppositions but the limit of the objective designation that such a logic (A versus B) relies upon. Put simply, because A and B depend upon antagonism, they themselves are never stable nor is their relation; an instability or lack that ensures their continuous alteration. For this reason, Oliver Marchart explains that, while an ontological concept that itself lacks objective expression,

antagonism will always be right there, in front of our eyes, on the surface of every social institution, of every social identity, of everything that presents itself as social fact. Being transimmanent to the social, antagonism makes this ‘surface’ tremble from within. It does not make much difference, at the ontological level, whether we think of institutions, groups, organisations, functional systems, structures, interactions, classes or identities. Antagonism is what undermines their very objectivity. (2018: 89)

Second, Laclau claims that ‘a fully achieved differential identity would involve the sanctioning of the existing status quo in the relation between groups’ (1995: 147). The basic idea is that if pure difference were asserted, it would not be possible to make any judgements about the other, which would simply have to be left in its difference. This would make communication – which requires some form of equality – between the positions impossible without violating the differences between them. Without that supplement of equality, difference, on Laclau’s telling, descends into ‘hierarchy, where one group recognizes the differences between groups but places one above others’ (1995: 147). Laclau’s argument is underscored by the claim that simply affirming difference ignores the asymmetries of power distribution: some groups ‘have’ more power, however contingently, than others and so form a hierarchy or, at least, can impose one. Overcoming this ‘requires that difference be supplemented with equality, so [that] no group can claim foundational status, which, in turn, requires equivalence that undermines pure difference’ (1995: 147). This leads him from the logic of difference to what he calls the logic of equivalence.

The logic of equivalence

The logic of equivalence describes the process through which the commonalities binding the plural positions coalesce into a ‘totality’ and, as such, is intimately bound to the question of how a collective identity is generated from an initial heterogeneity (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 143–4). One way in which this discussion takes place is through an analysis of the particular–universal relation. Indeed, one of the key aspects of Laclau’s thinking is that he attempted to reintroduce the notion of universality into political theory at a time when, as a consequence of the influence of a certain reading of poststructuralism, political theory had tended to downplay it (Critchley and Marchart, 2004: 4). Laclau’s contention is guided by the claim that the rejection of universalism had been too quick, insofar as it tended to be based on the reduction of ‘universalism’ to one sense of the term (tied to singularity, homogeneity, and foundationalism). Laclau rejects such an approach and offers a corrective that rethinks the notion of universality, not from a single a priori substantial foundation, but in terms of a construction made possible because universality is defined not by a positive moment but by lack or emptiness (Laclau, 2001: 5; 2000a: 58).

However, as noted, Laclau does not simply claim that, while difference necessarily requires universality, this means that collective identity is based on the latter alone. He aims to escape the binary difference/equivalence, particular/universal oppositions by affirming the entwinement of both aspects (2005a: 46). Indeed, equivalence only results from the continued existence of particular demands, insofar as equivalence describes the process through which the demands of different groups coalesce to form a chain that in joining with other demands broadens the perspective of each group. As such, the movement to universality does not subsume or annihilate particularity; if it did, ‘there would be no possibility of an equivalential relation to start with’ (2005b: 139). Equivalentiality indicates the creation of a chain of different demands through a process in which each demand weakens itself so as to permit each to join with others in a manner that ‘introduces a dimension of relative universality’ (1995: 153) and which, in so doing, creates a ‘collective will’ (2001: 8).

The question that arises relates to how the various demands weaken to produce an equivalential chain. After all, on first glance, it is not clear how Laclau can coherently maintain that the participants in a group both maintain their difference to one another, all the while uniting to form a collective identity. The fear is that one cancels the other. Arguably, however, this ‘problem’ only arises because Laclau’s thinking is understood through a binary opposition that affirms difference/particularity or identity/universality. Based on that logic, Laclau’s attempt to demonstrate the imbrication of difference and identity, particularity and universality, appears as contradictory. But if, as I have suggested, Laclau aims to replace the logic of binary opposition with a logic of imbrication and we read his thinking on its own terms, we will see that he is actually pointing to a far more complicated account of collective identity formation. To outline this, I will now read Laclau’s thinking through three possible logics, each of which account for the creation of collective identity by outlining a different conception of the difference–identity/particular–universal relations.

The first, termed here the logic of universal imposition, is based on the notion that collective identity is created when a transcendent, singular, and positive moment imposes itself onto the originary plurality of demands to transform them into a single demand that is the foundation of the collective identity. This logic has then two main conditions: (1) collective identity is and must be based on a lack of internal antagonism, insofar as the collective is based on agreement or acceptance of a unitary principle; and (2) the unitary moment is something substantial or positive that imposes itself onto the originary plurality to create the identity of the collective. Laclau rejects both conditions: First, the creation of a collective identity cannot occur at the expense of ‘internal’ antagonism: ‘The subversion of difference by an equivalential logic does not take the form of a total elimination of the former through the latter’ (2005a: 46; see also 1996b: 206–7). Second, the unity of the collective cannot be imposed onto the originary difference from an external or transcendent position; as noted, it is a necessary condition of difference itself and so emanates immanently from the existence of competing demands. For these reasons, Laclau maintains that the movement from difference to equivalence is not the result of a process that (1) collapses the particular into the universal, as Laclau claims occurs in ancient philosophy (2007a: 22); (2) follows Christianity in insisting on a universal transcendent totality for whom accessibility is ‘God’s, not ours, so that it is not accessible to human reason’ (2007a: 23); or (3) adheres to modern forms of rationality wherein ‘God, as the absolute source of everything existing, was replaced in its function of universal guarantor by reason’ (2007a: 23). All of these would gain identity at the expense of the heterogeneity upon which the collective depends.

Rather than maintain that collective identity results when unity is imposed on an originary plurality, the second logic, termed here the logic of negation, is premised on the idea that collective identity arises from a common focus on an external position. The basic idea is that through their common focus on the ‘same’ external other, the various groups will maintain their individuality, while their focus on a common other is the shared moment that acts as the genesis for the formation of a collective identity. Whereas the logic of universal imposition is based on the imposition of unity onto the particular demands, the logic of negation is an action that the particularities do to the external moment, with their collectivity resulting from their common focus. This is important because it means that the universal moment depends on an action of the particular and, indeed, must maintain the particular against an other. Given Laclau’s insistence that the universal moment cannot simply usurp the particular, it is perhaps not surprising to find that, while he rejects collective identity based on universal imposition, he accepts something approaching the logic of negation when he insists on the importance of, what he calls, the ‘constitutive outside’ (1990: 9) for the genesis of collective identity.

To outline this, Laclau adopts Ferdinand de Saussure’s position that identity (=meaning) is gained only through the differences between signifiers (1986: 118), before maintaining that the context within which this takes place ‘has to be a closed one’ (1995: 151). This is because, ‘if all identities depend on the differential system’ (1995: 151), the differential system requires an other from which to differentiate itself; a condition that requires that the differential system be defined by limits. This, however, generates the problem as to how ‘from a logical point of view [to define] those limits’ (1995: 151). A foundationalist perspective would insist on the existence of ‘an ultimate ground which would be the source of all differences’ (1995: 151). Laclau, however, rejects such a stance, as a consequence of his affirmation of the primordial importance of plurality. So, having affirmed ‘a true pluralism of differences’ (1995: 151) in which ‘differences are constitutive’ (1995: 151), he points out that it is necessary to define the ‘systematic limits’ (1995: 151) in terms of ‘the differences themselves’ (1995: 151). But this generates a further problem: if the only way to define a context is through its limits, which in turn require an ‘outside’ from which to distinguish that context – the ‘inside’ needs to be differentiated from its ‘outside’ for the being and meaning of both to arise – then the only ‘thing’ that lies outside is ‘difference’ (or, strictly speaking, what is different). The problem, however, is that ‘difference’ is precisely what defines the ‘internal’ structure of the context, with the consequence that ‘it is impossible to establish whether these new differences are internal or external to the context. The very possibility of a limit and, ergo, a context, is thus jeopardized’ (1995: 151).

Laclau claims that ‘the only way out of this difficulty is to postulate a beyond which is not one more difference but something which poses a threat to (i.e. negation of) all the differences within that context – or, better, that the context constitutes itself as such through the act of exclusion of something alien, of a radical otherness’ (1995: 151). He calls this the ‘constitutive outside’ (1990: 9) and maintains that it is the condition through which the plurality of demands coalesce into a collective. Through the identification of a constitutive outside, the various groups focus on and identify themselves against an external other, with that shared activity forging a common identity. Importantly, the construction of a constitutive outside is (1) an ongoing rather than a singular event that occurs from the reconfiguration of prior constructions of meaning (1994: 3); (2) always the construction of an absence, in the sense that the constitutive outside has no meaning per se, but has a functional status that permits the creation of boundaries of the collective; (3) defined by negativity, insofar as it is through the negation of the constitutive outside that the plural positions coalesce into a collective identity, all the while maintaining their plurality. Without this, there would be no limit to the collective and, as such, no possibility to obtain an identity. The assumption being that identity is constructed from some (negative, empty) other; and (4) the reason why identity is never absolute or full; its dependence on the negation of the constitutive outside means that it always suffers a ‘dislocation’ (Laclau et al., 2014: 257–8) that prevents the attainment of an identity (see also Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 127). As such:

The ‘something identical’ shared by all the terms of the equivalential chain – that which makes the equivalence possible – [is not] something positive (i.e. one more difference which could be defined in its particularity), but proceeds from the unifying effects that the external threat puts to an otherwise perfectly heterogeneous set of differences (particularities). The ‘something identical’ can only be the pure, abstract, absent fullness of the community, which lacks, as we have seen, any direct form of representation and expresses itself through the equivalence of the differential terms. (1995: 156)

Here, we see the positive and necessary role that negativity and hence ‘lack’ (1996a: 56) play in Laclau’s account. The collective is separated from (i.e. lacks) the constitutive outside that allows the collective to constitute itself as an identity, without it ever being possible to fill that gap so that the two – the collective and its constitutive outside – form a closed totality. For this reason, the constitutive outside is both the grounding condition of the collective identity and that which continually upsets that identity to prevent it from attaining such status. At the heart of the attempt to attain a collective identity lies then a paradox, insofar as it requires the status or appearance of fullness to function as a collective identity, but yet it can never actually attain that status because of the lack that constitutes the relation between its elements, the disruption caused to it by its dependence on the constitutive outside, and the fact that the constitutive outside must remain empty so that different groups can invest it with different meaning and so see themselves opposed to it. In many respects, the constitutive outside is the condition that simply delineates the boundaries of the collective identity without providing it with any positive meaning. For this reason, Laclau claims that any collective identity achieved from the negation of the constitutive outside is one of ‘absent fullness’ (2007b: 42), in which the appearance of a (positive) identity is, as a consequence of its dependence on a logic of differential relationality and/or the negation of the constitutive outside, in reality defined by the absence of definitive meaning.

However, two issues arise at this point: First, while Laclau maintains that collective identity depends upon the negation of a constitutive outside, thereby revealing his dependence on the logic of negation, if this were the only condition required for the creation of a collective identity, the danger would be that he affirmed a logic of binary opposition that pits two homogeneous blocks – the constitutive outside versus the collective (absent full) identity – against one another in a way that fails to respect Laclau’s insistence that identity itself is always plural. Second, Laclau’s account of the movement from the logic of difference to the logic of equivalence runs a thin line wherein, on the one hand, the disparate demands must weaken themselves to be able to join with others, while, on the other hand, not weakening too much to maintain their differences in any identity created. The question arises as to how this weakening takes place. In response, Laclau depends upon the logic of negation, but complements it by relying upon another logic, termed here the logic of symbolic mediation.

The logic of symbolic mediation

The basic claim underpinning this logic is that the particular and universal are united through the mediation of a symbolic signifier. By focusing on and investing meaning in this signifier, the disparate demands form an equivalential chain, insofar as each identifies with the ‘same’ signifier in a way that both weakens their individual demands and creates a collective identity. The key issues that result refer to (1) the ontology of the unifying signifier, and (2) how the disparate groups come to weaken their demand and identify with one another through the mediation of their respective identifications with the unifying signifier. Starting with (1), two options appear, insofar as the meaning of the unifying signifier is (a) positive and universal so that identification with it brings unity to the group, or (b) empty, so that each group can invest it with its own meaning. As noted, Laclau’s basic problem with (a) is that it demands homogeneity of agreement that undermines the heterogeneity necessary for the life of the collective. For this reason, he maintains that (b) the meaning of the unifying signifier is one of emptiness, insofar as it is ‘a signifier without a signified’ (2007b: 36), although he also rejects such a description because it ‘would turn it into mere noise, and would put it outside the field of signification’ (2005b: 119). For this reason, Rodolphe Gasché (2004: 28) is correct to suggest that Laclau’s notion of an empty signifier is a bit of a misnomer, insofar as it never lacks all meaning per se. Somewhat confusingly, Laclau maintains that empty signifiers are not empty but ‘must mean something’ (2005b: 119) and do so by ‘describing’ or naming ‘the gap that has emerged within signification’ (2005b: 119). They therefore describe or denote the gap between the signifier and signified and are, in a sense, working towards signified status, but strictly speaking can never achieve an absolute sense. If they did, they would not be empty but would take on a definitive meaning. Instead, they can only be temporarily captured by a hegemonic project that imbues it with a temporary and partial meaning that is always contested and so unstable.

Space constraints prevent a detailed discussion of Laclau’s notion of hegemony (see Howarth, 2004), but, very generally, a hegemonic position is established when a particular group successfully ‘presents itself as realizing the broader aims either of emancipating or ensuring order for wider masses of the population’ (2007b: 43). When this occurs, ‘the sectorial aims of a group…operate as the name for a universality transcending them’ (2000b: 143). There are various ways in which this occurs, but Laclau specifically mentions the importance of imaginary creations, which is why the construction of hegemonic positions is intimately tied to the creation of (founding and constituting) myths (1990: 61–8). These provide a narrative to bind different groups, are orientated from a particular standpoint, and create and are created by their instantiation.

Politics, for Laclau, is primarily a hegemonic project, aiming at establishing symbolic dominance; that is, a particular demand comes to establish itself as being synonymous with the collective. This, however, raises the question as to whether Laclau is reducing politics to a discursive activity, in a way that ignores or downplays ‘real’ material problems and issues. The fundamental problem with this criticism, however, is that it establishes a false dichotomy between the symbolic lack of empty signifiers and supposed ‘real’ material problems. One of the main aims of Laclau’s political theory is to undermine this material/symbolic dichotomy by showing that material problems are not opposed to the symbolic system but are entwined with symbolic understanding. By bringing the collective to see and understand the world in a particular way and through particular terms, hegemony is not a discourse that masks another ‘real’ world; hegemony literally creates a world, including what is considered a problem, how to conceive of problems, and the solutions to them. If empty signifiers are understood one way then the collective, including its ability to think about and respond to issues, forms in a way that is different to that which occurs if it is orientated around another hegemonic project. For example, if ‘freedom’ is understood in terms of a hegemonic project that ties it to individual rational economic activity, as much classical economic theory posits, the problem of hunger is conceptualised in terms of individual responsibility and/or questions of supply and demand. If, however, ‘freedom’ is understood not in terms of the absence of restrictions on individual action but in terms of certain positive actions, then the problem of hunger takes on a different tone, sense, and meaning, as do the solutions permitted and necessary to resolve it. Rather than occurring through a binary material/symbolic opposition, Laclau points out that the ability to deal with political problems depends upon how those problems are conceived, which depends upon how they are conceptualized and, by extension, the hegemonic project through which they are brought to the fore. The battle over empty signifiers is not opposed to ‘real’ material problems; the battle over the terms of the debate is what brings forth and structures what is considered a ‘real’ problem and how it can be resolved.

There is, however, always a gap between the particular and the universal which means that the group that becomes hegemonic does not literally become universal; if it did, the difference that generates the collective would be reduced to the singular perspective of one group. As noted, however, this is precisely what Laclau rejects. To explain how perspectives can be both different and unified, Laclau posits that hegemony does not arise when a particular position literally becomes universal, but when it appears and is taken to be so. It operates, in other words, as an empty universal (2005b: 224–5). For this reason, Saul Newman explains that ‘There is always something missing from the social totality, something that escapes social signification – a gap upon which society is radically founded. There is an excess of meaning that escapes various social signifiers [and] means that the identity of society is incomplete; it can never form a closed identity, because there is always a Real that remains unsymbolizable’ (2007: 147).

Laclau goes on to clarify the status of this ‘emptiness’ by distinguishing ‘it’ from (1) ‘equivocal’ (2007: 43), where ‘the same signifier can be attached to different signifieds in different contexts’ (2007: 43), (2) ‘ambiguous’ (2007: 43), in which ‘either an overdetermination or an underdetermination of [the] signified prevents it from being fully fixed’ (2007: 43), and (3) ‘void’ (2005b: 170), which fails to understand that an empty signifier does not simply entail absence; it entails a productive absence. The notion of an empty signifier has therefore a particular meaning and, in so doing, designates a particular ‘thing’: although its appearance of presence ultimately turns out to be illusionary because the empty signifier never becomes a signified but only exists as a quasi-signified, its emptiness is not nothingness because it is ‘constituted’ by and appears through ‘the presence of its absence’ (1994: 1). As such, empty signifiers play a double role: they are ‘completely unreachable’ (2007: 39) precisely because they do not actually have a content of their own but operate as a necessary (if absent) ‘thing’, full of (projected) meaning, that binds the system of signification (and different groups) into a particular systematic totality. This binding is, of course, possible precisely because of their emptiness, which allows them to be imbued with different meanings by different groups so that each can see in them what it wants or demands. The naming of the empty signifier is then a fundamental (ongoing) event in bringing forth the ‘singularity’ (2005b: 100) of collective identity. This never occurs in the same fashion, with Laclau explaining that ‘The less society is kept together by immanent differential mechanisms, the more it depends, for its coherence, on this transcendent, singular moment’ (2005b: 100). At its ‘most extreme form’ (2005b: 100), this ‘process reaches a point where the homogenising function is carried out by a pure name: the name of the leader’ (2005a: 40; see also 2005b: 100).

This argument has generated significant opposition, with various commentators concluding that it demonstrates Laclau’s latent affirmation of an ‘authoritarian politics’ (Arato, 2013: 156; see also Johnston, 2017: 30–1, 36). There are, however, at least two problems with this criticism: First, Laclau mentions that the name of the leader plays this unifying role only in the ‘extreme form of singularity’ (2005b: 100). It does not entail, as his critics affirm, that all collective identities will be structured around the affirmation of the name of a leader. Second, Laclau’s critics confuse the name of the leader with the ‘positive personality of a leader’ (Johnston, 2017: 36) and, in so doing, misinterpret Laclau’s position by turning the lack inherent in the name into a positive determination tied to a particular person. As noted, however, for Laclau, the name plays a very particular role and, indeed, is constituted in a particular way. It does not entail a positive determination but points to an empty placeholder that lacks definitive meaning. Laclau does not then affirm an authoritarian politics, orientated from the affirmation of One – he is clear that such a position would annihilate the conditions of the social because it would annihilate the difference that fuels the life of the universal – but suggests that certain societies will be formed from and around a particular fixation on a particular name of a particular person, whereas others will have more dispersed means of binding themselves.

However, even in those extreme forms that require the name of the leader to bind themselves, the name is an empty signifier. Rather than having an a priori positive determination that is imposed onto the populace to create unity, the name of the leader acts as a rallying point around and through which the populace congeals itself into a singularity. As Laclau explains, ‘the name representing that collective will is never the passive expression of any previously achieved unity. On the contrary, the name retroactively constitutes the very will that it claims to represent’ (2000b: 144). It is, in other words, a bottom-up movement wherein the populace creates itself out of its investment in the name rather than a top-down imposition from a particular personality. This performative act is not conceptual, which Laclau associates with pure abstract reason, but is inherently affective and based on a performative investment of meaning in the name (2005b: 110). Crucially, this is not simply founded on individual decision. For Laclau, the individual is ‘always the partial result of sedimented practices’ (2000a: 84), and so is inherently social, with the consequence that ‘its decision will never be ex nihilo but a displacement – within existing social norms – of the impossible object of the ethical investment’ (2000a: 84–5). It is, in other words, an affective, social, embodied, and embedded investment, rather than one that emanates from an unencumbered actor.

Having shown that Laclau rethinks the universal moment that generates collective identity from the lack of empty signifiers, I now turn to the question as to how the disparate groups come to weaken their demand to identify with one another through the mediation of their respective identifications with the unifying signifier. One way to respond would be to claim that although antagonisms continue to exist between the various groups of a collective identity, the various groups reflectively and consciously weaken their demand to, in so doing, downplay their antagonism with other groups so that they can both make their demands synonymous with the same signifier. From a Laclauian perspective, there are, however, two fundamental problems with this understanding: First, it accounts for the binding of the collective by relying on the conscious reflection of each participant (=disparate demand). This, however, depends upon (1) a foundational subject, and (2) there being transparency (a) ‘in’ each demand so that it fully understands itself and its relation to others, and (b) between different demands wherein each is conscious of (i) where the limit lies between them and (ii) the amount of antagonism permitted to still allow the formation of a collective identity. Only if such transparency exists is it possible for each demand to consciously and reflectively run the thin line that brings each to weaken their demand to just an extent to permit unity with others, all the while maintaining their own particularity. Only if each is cognizant of the limit and continuously reflecting on their relations will they be able to exist antagonistically to one another without undermining the unity that sustains the collective identity.

Not only does the centrality of lack in Laclau’s thinking and his insistence on the dislocation that occurs from the constitutive outside negate such transparency, but his dependence upon aspects of Lacan’s thinking, in particular the unconscious and the notion of the real (that which cannot be symbolized), further calls into question the idea that the subject is ever foundational or transparent to itself regarding its demands or can ever obtain a transparent and full understanding of others. As Linda Zerilli puts it, far from being transparent to itself and/or others, each demand ‘cannot exist apart from, [but] is not reducible to, the plurality of (failed) identifications and misrecognitions which make up the subject’s psychic reality’ (2004: 100). Rather than relations of immediate transparent knowledge, intersubjective actions are infused with and depend upon misrecognitions.

Although Zerilli offers an important corrective to accounts that depend upon transparent, reflective thought/action to explain the creation of collective identity, I want to suggest that the affirmation of misrecognition, while perhaps important for understanding aspects of everyday social interactions, is, for Laclau, highly problematic when trying to understand the genesis of collective identity. Laclau explicitly warns us about the concept of ‘misrecognition’ when discussing Althusser’s theory of ideology for the main reason that it can implicitly depend upon a ‘neutral gaze’ (1996b: 204) that transcends the relation to determine that it is, in fact, based on a form of misrecognition. In other words, the danger with ‘misrecognition’ is that it can be understood to implicitly depend upon a transcendent position between the participants of the relation, with that transcendent position permitting judgement on the type of recognition therein. In other words, it is because of this transcendent position that it is possible to determine whether the recognition of the person is accurate or not. However, the affirmation of such a unitary position re-affirms the privileging of fundamental identity over difference that Laclau rejects. I would also add that, by implicitly offering the possibility that any misrecognition might be overcome so that the ‘truth’ can be properly recognized, misrecognition appears to depend upon an ahistoric objectivity that Laclau also rejects, while by tying misrecognition to the subject’s psychic reality, Zerilli (purposefully) affirms a subject-centric analysis that Laclau’s affirmation of the demand seeks to avoid. For these reasons, I want to emphasize not the role that misrecognition plays in generating a collective identity, but, building on Laclau’s claim that the construction of meaning takes place through an ideological process of ‘constitutive distortion’ (2006b: 205), a particular but often overlooked structural process that I will call misunderstanding.

Laclau is aware that the notion of a ‘constitutive distortion’ (1996b: 205) might be thought to be absurd for the simple reason that distortion is often taken to depend upon a prior non-distorted ground that really constitutes the entity’s identity. However, Laclau delves into this notion of ‘distortion’ to explain that this conclusion only arises because ‘distortion’ is understood to entail (1) ‘a primary meaning [that] is presented as something different from what it is’ (1996b: 205), with (2) ‘the distortive operation – not only its results – [being] somehow visible’ (1996b: 206). According to Laclau, the problematic clause for the notion of constitutive distortion is (2) because, as noted, were the distortion to be visible, it would reveal that the identity created would be a distortion of what actually is, with the consequence that the non-distorted truth would be revealed as the true constituting element. Laclau’s solution is to maintain that a distortive moment can be constitutive if the constitutive moment is simultaneously withdrawn, and the distortive moment is concealed through the act of constitution. This does not mean that it does not exist, but that it exists as an absence, lack, or non-presence. For this to occur, the original meaning must be projected as fixed when in reality its fixity is ‘illusory [with] the distortive operation consist[ing] in precisely creating that illusion – that is, to project into something which is essentially divided the illusion of a fullness and self-transparency that it lacks’ (1996b: 205). Laclau notes that there is a moment of dislocation here, insofar as the posited meaning is undermined by the act of its positing, but he goes further by claiming that distortion is slightly different, insofar as ‘a concealment of some sort takes place in it’ (1996b: 205). Specifically, the positing of closure constitutes a fixed meaning, but the meaning constituted does not reveal actuality (which is defined by the lack of closure); it conceals (and hence distorts) what actually is (=a lack of closure) so that the posited meaning only exists as the illusion of closure. Importantly, this is not strictly speaking a negative occurrence: ‘the operation of closure is impossible but at the same time necessary; impossible because of the constitutive dislocation which lies at the heart of any structural arrangement, necessary, because without that fictitious fixing of meaning there would not be meaning at all’ (1996b: 205).

Laclau’s notion of constitutive distortion is primarily orientated to semiotic and symbolic issues regarding the creation of fixed meaning and the role that ideology plays therein, but, in what follows, I want to link it explicitly back to the question of collective identity to suggest that it can help to bring out a key, if often overlooked, structural aspect of Laclau’s account of the genesis of collective identity, which I will call misunderstanding. Highlighting this notion is not to insist that Laclau affirms a subject-centric position wherein collective identity results when the different participants of the equivalential chain reflectively weaken their own demands to agree over the meaning of a unifying (empty) signifier. Such an account would contradict Laclau’s critique of the founding subject and result in a homogeneity that would undermine the differences that he insists are necessary for the existence of a collective identity. Instead, Laclau points to a far more complex and paradoxical position in which a condition of any collective identity is that its heterogeneous aspects take themselves to be in agreement over the meaning of a particular signifier (which permits them to identify with one another and so form a collective identity), when in fact they invest it with (slightly) different meanings (permitted by its fundamental lack). Although there is a moment of constitutive distortion at play here, insofar as the posited meaning or identity does not reveal what actually is but functions by concealing the actual lack of identity, I want to suggest that there must also necessarily exist a misunderstanding between the various groups comprising the equivalential chain of the collective: on the one hand, they affirm different, even contradictory, positions regarding the meaning of the universal (empty) signifier to maintain the heterogeneity between them that generates and sustains the dynamism of the collective identity, all the while (through their mistaken belief that they agree over its meaning) binding themselves to one another in a way that creates a sense of collective identity. There is a misunderstanding here between what is actually occurring – the heterogeneous aspects necessarily investing the universal signifier with different meanings so as to maintain their difference – and the perception that a shared sense of symbolic investment exists, and with it a collective identity.

Rather than occurring through the imposition of a hegemonic project or agreement per se over the meaning of the empty signifier, the key aspect of this process is the ‘earlier’ moment in which each demand invests the empty signifier with meaning: the disparate groups band together through the equivalential chain because each (i) sees its demand manifested through the empty signifier and, based on this, (ii) takes others to share its demand. The problem, however, is that to maintain their difference, each demand must invest a different meaning onto the empty signifier. It is this that permits each to see itself reflected or represented through the empty signifier. Indeed, to maintain their particularity, each demand must retain something of itself as it invests the empty signifier with meaning. Even as each weakens its own demand to permit the creation of the equivalential chain, the disparate demands can never get to absolute agreement (which would annihilate the heterogeneity necessary for the continued existence of the universal). As such, not all members of the collective can identify with the mediating (empty) signifier in exactly the same way.

However, somewhat paradoxically, each must also perceive that their invested meaning is shared by others. Only through this perceived agreement can they recognize that others share the ‘same’ understanding, with this permitting the formation of a common identity. Although each may think that others agree with them entirely over the meaning of the mediating signifier, the reality is that for collective identity (which maintains heterogeneity therein) to be created requires a structural mismatch between the perception that the various demands are in agreement and the reality that each invests the mediating signifier that binds them with different meaning. This mismatch is not simply a consequence of a subjective epistemic failure nor is it something that the participants can and/or should become aware of or rectify. Misunderstanding is a structural component of collective identity but is something of which the various actors must remain oblivious; if they were cognizant of it, they would realize that they did not invest the signifier with the same sense of meaning, with the consequence that their sense of unity with the other groups would dissipate and with it the collective identity.

Conclusion

Laclau’s account of collective identity does not then depend upon the universal usurpring the particular, nor does it rely upon an authoritarian leader imposing unity onto heterogeneity. Instead, he offers a sophisticated account of the imbrication of particularity/difference and universality/identity through the combination of the negation of an external other and symbolic mediation in the form of empty signifiers. Because empty signifiers can be invested with different meanings by each demand, they permit each to maintain its particularity all the while perceiving itself as joining an equivalential chain with others to form a collective identity. However, I have sought to employ and extend Laclau’s notion of constitutive distortion to bring to light a key structural aspect of this moment of symbolic mediation: the generation of a collective identity through the equivalential chain is premised on a ‘misunderstanding’ that arises because the chain of equivalence creating the collective identity requires that each position comprising it mistakenly (1) take the universal to be ‘something’ that expresses its demand, and (2) believe that its demand is shared by others. Neither of these actually occurs: in the case of (1) because the universal mediating moment is fundamentally empty rather than full of meaning, and (2) because, strictly speaking, the various demands of the collective do not line up exactly. There is always a necessary discrepancy (to maintain the heterogeneity necessary for the life of the collective) between them that is covered or hidden by the unifying mirage provided by the empty signifier. Importantly, not only is this mismatch not something that participants can or should aim to rectify, but its existence must remain ‘hidden’ from them because if they were to recognize that they did not invest the empty signifier with the same sense, their common identity would disappear. For this reason, ‘misunderstanding’ is not reducible to a subject’s epistemic error; it describes a necessary structural condition of Laclau’s attempt to account for collective identity. With this, Laclau provides an innovative account of how collective identity is generated that relies on logics of negation and symbolic mediation to outline how heterogeneity and homogeneity are entwined, shows that (a certain form of) misunderstanding – that must remain hidden from those involved – is a structural condition of such collective identity, and, in so doing, points to the paradoxically positive role that such misunderstanding plays in the construction and sustenance of collective identity. ²