Ideology in imaginarisation times

Notes for a study about contemporary political actors

Abstract

This paper delves into the contemporary identity dynamics of political actors. It begins with two phenomena which have been widely analysed in current political science: the increasing instability of representation patterns in political systems, on the one side, and the rise of discriminative and reactionary political expressions, on the other. Articulating Political Theory of Discourse with some notions of lacanian psychoanalysis, we hypothesize that beneath both processes underlie a structural disruption in the way social relations are constituted, that has to do with the strengthening of neoliberal capitalism and that implies the decline of authority as well as the exaltation of the subject as an individual omnipotent agent. In order to sustain our exposition, we will underline the performative nature of ideology and its imaginary and symbolic dimensions. Then we will highlight the way political identifications no longer depend on symbolic articulation dynamics, but emphasize the imaginary feature of the intersubjective relation. This imaginarisation process —which tends to reject the incomplete trait of the social bond and to propel an unrestricted satisfaction of the particular jouissance— must be taken into account when analysing the contemporary political actors and their intervention in current democratic debate