Journalof Political Ideologies (2001), 6(2),191– 214 The grip of ideology: aLacanian approach to thetheory of ideology 1 JASONGLYNOS Departmentof Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, ColchesterCO4 3SQ, UK ABSTRACT Is it possible to say somethingabout how an ideology grips subjects that goesbeyond today’ s sophisticated accountsof howparticular socio-political traditions havebeen contingently constituted? This paperexplores howa Lacanianconceptual framework provides the resources with whichto offer an afrmative response to this question.In outlining such a response,I rely on Slavoj ZÏizÏek’s political re-articulations of psychoanalyticcategories andon Ernesto Laclau’s hegemonicapproach to ideology.I beginby situating the hegemonicapproach to ideologyin the context of other contemporaryap- proaches.I thenoffer areadingwhich suggests that ZÏizÏek’s Lacanianapproach canbe seen as aparticular version of the hegemonicapproach to ideology. Crucial to the former are the conceptsof desire, fantasy,and enjoyment. I suggest that aLacaniantheory of ideologyoffers us aset of conceptsdrawn from the clinic that provokeinteresting insights for the analysis andcritique of ideology. TheLacanian intervention into the eld ofideological analysis andcritique can beseen as aspecial versionof amoregeneral hegemonic approach to ideology. Andboth can be understoodagainst the backgroundof aquestionthat has come to dominatecontemporary normative political theoryin general,and post-struc- tural political theoryin particular. Givena contextin whichan emphasis on contingencyhas dealt asevere blowto the credibility ofmoral andpolitical claims to ‘universal andobjective truth’, is it still credible to speakof ideological critique? Ahegemonicapproach suggests that ideologycan, and should, be retained as apotentially fruitful political categorywith considerableanalytical andcritical value.It relies, however,upon a suitably revampedunderstanding of ideological misrecognition,a revampedunderstanding shared by post-structural approaches to ideology.Here contingency is takenas constitutive ofthe process of discursive construction,thereby making the invisibility ofcontingency constitu- tive ofideological misrecognition.Rendering contingency visible,therefore, groundsthe process ofideological critique. ISSN1356-9317 print; 1469-9613 online/ 01/020191–24 Ó 2001Taylor & FrancisLtd DOI: 10.1080/13569310120053858 JASON GLYNOS Onecrucial consequenceof takingcontingency seriously is the needto engage in detailed historico-contextual analyses. This is becauseit is felt that such detailed analyses helpmake visible the contingentnature of processes ofsocial construction.Accompanying this revampedunderstanding of ‘ misrecognition’, however,is averyimportant shift in focusthat ahegemonicapproach to the theoryof ideologyemphasizes: its capacity to accountfor an ideology’s grip, its powerto transx subjects. Thelink betweenideology and power is generallytaken for granted. More and more,so toois the link betweenpower and systems ofmeaning. It is nolonger uncommonto ndanalyses ofideological powerconducted in terms ofthe ‘naturalization’of meanings and patterns ofmeaning. Such naturalizations effectively concealthe political momentin whichdecisions couldhave been otherwise madeon account of the irreducible contingencythat inhabits the dynamicsof socio-political discourse.The crucial questionfrom a hegemonic perspective is the following:Is it possible to say somethingabout how an ideology grips subjects that goesbeyond today’ s sophisticated accountsof how particular socio-political traditions havebeen contingently constituted? Theanswer to this questionis byno means obvious.Among other things, it forces areconsiderationof the veryrole andfunction of theory in the studyof ideologyand political phenomenamore generally. For those political andsocial analysts that havetaken to heart post-positivist insights, sucha questioncannot butraise the twin spectres ofessentialism anddogmatism. Nevertheless, Iwould like to explorehow a Lacanianconceptual framework provides the resources with whichto makepossible anaf rmative responseto the abovequestion, withoutabandoning anti-essentialist presuppositions.In outlining such an ap- proach,I rely onthe workof ErnestoLaclau and, more heavily, on the workof Slavoj ZÏ izÏ ek. Ibeginby situating the hegemonicapproach to ideologyin the contextof othercontemporary approaches. Central in the elaborationof a hegemonic approachto ideologyis the workof Ernesto Laclau who, I suggest,effects ashift fromtreating ideologyin epistemological terms to treating it in ontological terms. Ioffera readingwhich suggests that ZÏ izÏ ek’s Lacanianapproach can be seen as aparticular versionof the hegemonicapproach to ideology.In this reading,the hegemonicapproach is presentedas the genusof whicha Lacanian theoryof ideology is aspecies. Iprovidea sketch ofthe conceptualframework against whichthe Lacanianintervention can be understood.Crucial in this regard are the conceptsof desire, fantasy,and enjoyment (jouissance).Isuggest that a Lacaniantheory of ideology offers us aset ofconcepts drawn from the clinic that are ofpotentially insightful relevancefor the analysis andcritique of ideology. Hegemonyin the contextof contemporary approaches to ideological analysis Contemporaryperspectives onideology are split. Onthe onehand, there are those whoannounce the endof ideology or the endof history, implicitly 192 THE GRIP OFIDEOLOGY brandingsimilar declarations of1950s and early 1960sas either prematureor simply erroneous.Here, the increasingly widespreadacceptance of capitalist liberal democratic ideals is usually offeredup asdenitive proofof these ‘ends’. 2 Onthe otherhand, there are those whoare keento reassert the pertinenceof ideologyoften precisely because liberal capitalism’s ideals are becomingever morenaturalized andthus invisible. Inthis view,the fact that there is a widespreadfeeling that wehave nally arrivedat anend is itself usually counted as evidenceindicating ideology’s presenceand strength ofhold. 3 Myselective overviewof contemporaryapproaches to the theoryof ideologywill focuson the latter group. Thepositions ofthose whoaccept the presenceof ideology can by no means becharacterized as homogeneous.Their differences turnnot on whetherwe live in anideologically-imbued society buton whether and howideology can be retained as ananalytically andcritically useful theoretical categoryin studyingmany political phenomena. 4 So,while ideologyis still seen as fully operativein contemporarysocieties, suchcommentators— whether Marxist, post-Marxist, ornon-Marxist— wish to investigate its valueas atheoretical categorywith the aim either ofabandoning it in favourof otherconceptual tools orof revamping it bymeans ofan alternative articu- lation. But whatexactly motivates this renewedinterest in,and debate over, ideology?At least oneimportant motivational sourceis to befound in philosophy’s ‘linguistic turn’in the third quarterof the twentieth century. Wittgensteinian languagegames, Heideggerian post-phenomenological her- meneutics, Lacanianpsychoanalysis, Derridean deconstruction, and Foucaultian archaeologiesand genealogies, have all in their waycontributed to today’s so-called era of‘ post-foundationalism’. It is onlyrelatively recently that suchanti-essentialist insights haveseeped into the humanities andsocial sciences, instigating are-articulation oftraditional categories suchas object andsubject, orstructure andagency. The importance of language’ s constitutive natureis appreciatedmore and more beyond the disciplinary boundariesof (post-analytical andcontinental) philosophyand literature, oftenresulting in ashift ofanalytical emphasis towardsystems ofmeaning and identity, discursive conditionsof possibility, andthe specicity ofsocio-histori- cal contexts. Thesigni cance of this ‘linguistic turn’for ideological analysis is nottoo hard to apprehend.No longer can the categoryof ideology be propped up by the traditional dichotomywhich pits ‘misrecognition’or ‘ false-consciousness’ against a‘true objective knowledge’— aknowledgethat canbe grasped by means ofa seemingly transparent linguistic medium.It is in comingto terms with the constitutive natureof language and, more generally, discourse, that several ofthe positions in the debateover the critical productivenessof ideology as atheoretical categorymay be mapped.In illustrating howthese positions can beconceivedin terms oftheir stances towardthe role oflanguage and meaning 193 JASON GLYNOS in ideological analysis, Iwill canvass the worksof Michael Freedenand Michel Foucaultin orderbetter to place into contextthe interventions ofErnestoLaclau and Slavoj ZÏ izÏ ek. Michael Freedenhas beenled to investigate notideology as suchbut (political) ideolog ies,in the plural.‘ [I]noppositionto traditional studies of political thoughtwhich focus on “ truth andepistemology, ethical richness, logical clarity, origins andcauses” , andaim to direct orrecommend political action, [Freedensuggests the need ] to developa formof conceptual analysis of ideologies that is sensitive to concretepolitical languageand debate.’ 5 Here, ‘[t]hefocusis notsimply onlogical andabstract conceptualpermutations; rather, it is onthe location ofpolitical conceptsin terms ofthe patterns in whichthey actually appear’, 6 therebygenerating complex conceptual morphologies that are delimited throughdecontestation andthat are sensitive to concrete,historically- situated ideologies. Inthis wayFreeden is able to establish apowerfuldemarcation criterion with