Publication details
Fantasy and Ideology of Legal Form – Laclau and Žižek Debate Revisited
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This paper aims to analyse the significance of fantasy for the ideological function of legal form, based on the theoretical differences between the works of Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek. Although both conceptualize ideology as an open and incomplete linguistic system, they differ in their approach to how ideology is able to create the appearance of consistency and thus legitimacy. Laclau's explanation of this ideological operation rests on the notion of the empty signifier, that is, a generic sign that is capable of containing any particular meaning. Laclau's ideological critique, in turn, points to the fact that the connection between specific content and the generic sign is contingent, and ideology is called into question at the very moment when this contingency is revealed. Žižek's approach emphasizes a concept familiar to Lacanian psychoanalysis (which Laclau is also inspired by to some extent), namely fantasy. Fantasy performs the function of a fictional narrative that conceals the incompleteness of our reality, or the fictional nature of reality itself. My intention is to show that Laclau and Žižek, as leading exponents of a strand of ideology critique, offer a methodological apparatus for understanding the ideology of legal form. Therefore, the notion of legal form and its ideological basis will first be explained and then the theories of ideological critique according to Laclau and Žižek will be confronted in order to solve their disagreements and to show the methodological applicability of the fantasy for the ideology studies, namely, that of traversal of fantasy. |