Research Paper

The Disfiguration of the Concept of “the People” in Contemporary Democracy: A Critical Reading of Laclau, Mouffe, and Agamben

https://doi.org/10.30465/os.2026.54761.2111

Mahdi Abbasi

Abstract Introduction
The concept of “the people” has always occupied a central but contested position in democratic thought. Although democratic systems derive their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, the meaning and boundaries of the people have never been entirely fixed. In contemporary democracies, this ambiguity has intensified due to the decline of traditional parties, weakening representative relationships, growing distrust toward political institutions, and the rise of populist movements claiming to represent the “real people.” Therefore, the contemporary crisis of democracy is not only a crisis of representation but also a struggle over the meaning and boundaries of the people. This study examines whether the transformation of the concept of the people is merely a consequence of failures in representative institutions or whether it reflects deeper tensions within liberal democracy itself. The main argument is that this transformation results from the interaction of institutional, discursive, hegemonic, and exclusionary processes. To analyze this issue, the article critically examines the theories of Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Giorgio Agamben.
Materials & Methods
The research uses a descriptive-analytical method based on critical analysis of theoretical texts. The main sources include the primary works of Laclau, Mouffe, and Agamben, as well as studies addressing populism, representative democracy, and critiques of these theories. Rather than simply describing the views of these thinkers, the study evaluates their explanatory capacity regarding a common question: how does the people become a contested political category?
The analysis is conducted through four dimensions: the crisis of representation, the discursive construction of the people, hegemonic competition, and mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. This framework allows the study to examine both the contributions and limitations of each theoretical approach.
Discussion & Results
The findings show that the crisis of representation provides an important context for understanding contemporary democratic transformations, but it cannot independently explain the changing meaning of the people. The decline of political parties, weakening connections between citizens and representatives, and increasing distrust toward elites create conditions for new political claims, but they do not explain how particular definitions of the people are constructed. Laclau’s theory demonstrates that the people should not be understood as a naturally existing social unity. Instead, the people emerge through political articulation, in which diverse social demands are connected and transformed into a collective identity. This approach explains how political subjects are created, but it faces difficulties in distinguishing between democratic constructions of the people and exclusionary claims that deny pluralism.Mouffe emphasizes the central role of conflict in democratic politics. From her perspective, democracy does not eliminate conflict but institutionalizes it through agonistic competition among legitimate adversaries. This approach explains why attempts to suppress political disagreement may contribute to populist mobilization. However, it provides a less developed explanation of situations in which certain groups are excluded from legitimate political participation.Agamben shifts attention from political competition to the boundaries of political membership. His concepts of bare life and the state of exception demonstrate how political orders may create forms of exclusion by determining who receives full legal and political protection. Although this perspective highlights an important dimension of modern power, its broad application may overlook the capacity of democratic institutions to resist exclusionary practices.The comparative analysis indicates that these three approaches explain different aspects of the transformation of the people. Laclau clarifies how collective identities are constructed; Mouffe explains the role of conflict and hegemony; and Agamben reveals the importance of inclusion and exclusion. Together, they demonstrate that the contemporary transformation of the people is produced through the interaction of multiple political processes rather than a single cause.
Conclusion
The study concludes that the disfiguration of the concept of the people cannot be reduced either to the crisis of representation or to the rise of populism alone. The transformation should be understood as a multilevel process in which institutional crisis, political articulation, hegemonic struggles, and mechanisms of exclusion interact. In contemporary democracy, the people remain the source of legitimacy while simultaneously becoming the object of political struggles over who can define, represent, and belong to them.This perspective shifts the analysis of democratic crisis from the question of whether institutions adequately represent the people toward a deeper question: how is the political subject called “the people” constituted and contested? The article therefore provides an integrated understanding of the relationship among democracy, representation, populism, and political inclusion and exclusion.

Research Paper

Law, Soul, and Political Theology: Reinterpreting Plato’s Laws through the Lens of Socratic Political Philosophy

https://doi.org/10.30465/os.2026.54920.2117

shervin Moghimi, Sepideh Mirmajidi

Abstract This article challenges the dominant interpretive framework that draws a fundamental distinction between Plato’s Republic and Laws, which is often understood as a shift from idealism to political realism. It argues instead that these two dialogues should be read as different articulations of a single Socratic political-philosophical project centered on the relation between philosophy, politics, and the formation of the human soul. Drawing on al-Farabi’s Summary of the Laws and contemporary Straussian interpretations, the article shows that in the Laws, law is not merely a mechanism of political order but a form of psychic education that seeks to regulate human passions—especially eros and thumos—through moderation. The role of poetry, music, and political theology is emphasized as integral to this educational framework. The main thesis is that the theological prelude to law and the discourse on the gods function as rhetorical and pedagogical strategies that secure obedience to law while preserving the possibility of philosophical life. Ultimately, the article concludes that the unifying theme of both the Republic and the Laws is the problem of the soul and the conditions for the coexistence of philosophy and political life.

Rereading the play Happy Days by Samuel Beckett Based on the principles of existentialism

Volume 13, Issue 1, June 2022, Pages 43-60

https://doi.org/10.30465/os.2022.42968.1859

mohammad bagher ansari, Ahmad kamyabi Mask, shahla Eslami

Abstract Existentialism is a philosophical school based on freedom, choice and responsibility that seeks to define the originality of human beings. This line of thought and philosophical attitude is reflected in the plays of Beckett, the French-Irish author of the 20th century and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, including Happy Days. Beckett did not have a political position. He was independent and did not talk about his works. Therefore, everyone interprets his works from their own point of view, and some people who do not know him correctly think that Beckett is a hopeless person and his works are ambiguous.

This research shows with a library, descriptive and analytical method: Beckett seeks to criticize the stagnation and passivity of man by describing the human situation in the play Happy Days. most people, despite being free, avoid thinking, trying to advance society and accepting responsibility. Without any will, they have no desire to become and change their own and others' lives, and with laziness and ignorance, they accept exploitation and colonization. Beckett, like other existentialists, sees the growth and liberation of a person in self-improvement, awakening and will power.



Keywords

Beckett, Happy Days, Existentialism, choice, Freedom, Responsibility

Wittgenstein's Theory of Language Games: A Postmodern Philosophical Viewpoint of Language

Volume 2, Issue 1, September 2011, Pages 87-100

Beytollah Naderlew

Abstract The Theory of Language Games is the key notion of Ludwig Wittgenstein's latter philosophy. This theory has been crafted against The Picture Theory of Language as the core of Wittgenstein’s Tractarian vision.
      According to The Picture Theory of Language, Language has merely one function: picturing reality. We can grasp the truth of World through grasping the truth of Language. Indeed, this latter theory is a representative of a Modern view of language. On the contrary, according to The Theory of Language Games, Language is a Multidimensional phenomenon; hence, we could never understand it from an Essentialist point of view. Indeed, Language consists of a body of different Language Games: Linguistic Functions. Each of such language games is connected with a special Form of Life. Thus conceived, understanding a language game essentially implies understanding the very Form of Life within which the language game occurs. The Theory of Language Games is a Postmodern Philosophical Standpoint of Language. And, in this article, our main goal is to analyze different aspects of this latter remark.

Physis or Fusis? ( Genealogy of the concept of nature in Greek mythology and philosophy)

Volume 12, Issue 1, September 2021, Pages 59-77

https://doi.org/10.30465/os.2021.38451.1772

Hasan Bolkhari Ghehi

Abstract Nature or Physis is one of the most fundamental concepts of Greek philosophy. Physis is a Greek philosophical, theological, and scientific term, usually translated into English—according to its Latin translation "natura"—as "nature".

This article defines the various concepts of physis in Greek civilization From the Age of Myth to the Philosophical Period. It will also discuss the two terms physis and fusis and the discussion about which one will be correct in pronunciation.

It is very important to pay attention to the mythological meanings of the word physis in the tradition of Orpheus and pre-Socratic philosophers. After researching the pre-Socratic concept of physis, we will address the approach of Plato and, more importantly, Aristotle. In particular, two important works of Aristotle (physic and metaphysics) that are Important sources of this research. Another important point in understanding the concept of nature in Greek is its different to techne. From Aristotle's point of view, techne is any artificial thing that is created by human intervention, Theoretical like poetry and practical as architecture. But man has no involvement in the creation of nature and natural objects. Therefore, in Greek philosophy, there is a opposition between nature and techne.

The Criticism of Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Subject, Truth and Power in Michel Foucault’s Thought

Volume 2, Issue 2, January 2012, Pages 127-179

Zakaria Ghaderi

Abstract Abstract: the basis of dualism in western philosophy, that flourished in modernity, was built upon the opposition between reason/intuition, heaven/earth, spirit/body, pleasure/morality. Foucault extends the criticism of this dualism to its final station in favor of intuition/earth. This paper will consider Foucault’s thought, his separation from philosophical/political discourse of modernity. Modernity started with humanism, but Foucault regarded the transition to modernity not as a transition to freedom and liberty, but as a transition from an observable domination to an unobservable one and takes all truth claims and general principles special formulation of hegemonic relations and power technologies.

Historical Periods and the Philosophy of Islamic Civilization and Its Relationship with the History of Western Civilization

Volume 3, Issue 2, March 2013, Pages 129-149

Mousa Najafi

Abstract Islamic Civilization is a subject with great importance, not only concerned with the identity of the Islamic world but also can be an effective factor in establishing it in the time when the Western Civilization beholds nothing equal to itself. But finding ups and downs occurred in the Western Civilization and how important this ups and downs is, are problems that can be a subject for research. Besides, in the discussion of the scientific and social developments in the human history, usually three periods are considered as criterions, that are Hellenic Ages, Middle Ages, and New Age; but this historical division includes mostly the scientific and social history of Europe and the West. This article discusses scientifically how to consider certain periods for the Islamic Civilization as well as its ups and downs during five great historical changes from various points of view. Two of these five periods studied in this article are the decadence and three of them are the exaltation of the Islamic civilization. Now we are in the third period of exaltation and the fifth step of development of the Islamic civilization. It can be a multilateral critical and comparative look at the history and development of the Islamic Civilization as compared with those of the Western Civilization.

"Eternal Recurrence" as Zarathustra's Most Abysmal Thought

Volume 6, Issue 2, June 2016, Pages 89-113

Roohollah Karimi

Abstract Nietzsche thinks Thus Spoke Zarathustra is his greatest book and the doctrine of eternal recurrence is the “most Abysmal Thought” of this book. Why has this doctrine such importance in the philosophy of Nietzsche? Although there are differences between eternal recurrence in The Gay Science to Zarathustra, but always remains a few characteristics. First, Nietzsche's eternal recurrence is a measure for revaluation of all values. The eternal recurrence is against the ressentiment and the ascetic ideal. Second, although Nietzsche in The will to power, sometimes has some sentences that imply to cosmological interpretation of the doctrine of eternal recurrence, but most interpreters have emphasized the practical implications of this doctrine, although about the modality of these implications there are disagreements among them.
The problem that arises is that if eternal recurrence requires that we say yes to everything, including unfavorable affairs, and even the "amor fati" implies to love pains, how to say yes to pains is compatible with to say yes to life? The answers to this question clarify new dimensions of Nietzsche's thought and the doctrine of eternal recurrence. This doctrine causes "creativity", "choice", "decision" and "activity". Eternal recurrence completes and leads nihilism to its peak and this is also desirable for Nietzsche.

Existential solitude in the modern world and its way of dealing with Ervin Yalom

Volume 9, Issue 1, December 2018, Pages 1-22

Mahsa amiri, amir abbas alizamani

Abstract     In contemporary existentialism, there are four endearing concerns or anxieties that cause human anxiety. These worries are freedom, emptiness, death and loneliness. A person is looking for the security of the childhood of these worries. In this philosophical and literary school, the human being is known as a subject who, in the experience of being and touching the meaning of being, immediately faces the truth of life and finds its absurd and meaningless life, Then, relying on the protection of the gem of "freedom" and using the possibility of choosing and choosing a goal, it brings a meaning to the series of events and events called "life". Erwin Yalom, in line with these thoughts, has tried to study existential concerns, including loneliness, which leads to problems and disruptions in life, and finds solutions to them. In this paper, we look at ways of coping with this problem by relying on an existentialist approach by examining what and the types of loneliness.

Keywords Cloud