Political symbols and symbolic policy of the Western European left radical parties

Abstract

The concept of agonistic democracy put forward by Ch. Mouffe opposes both the understanding of political conflict as antagonistic, the parties of which regard each other as implacable enemies, and the actual denial of the conflict in the consensus theories of democracy. This concept, in which a political conflict is seen as a struggle between two opponents, each of which recognizes the legitimacy of the other, has found its implementation in the activities of new left-wing radical parties that have appeared in Western Europe over the past 10-15 years. Their appearance was a reaction to the crisis and the decline of most of the «old» left-wing radical parties that came after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. The «new» left-wing radicals seek to develop their own identity, which is different from the communist and social-democratic ones, which is also manifested in the new emblematic symbols they invent, which are not like the sickle, hammer, and five-pointed star of the «old» left-wing radicals, and in the new discursive strategies. On the example of the Podemos party (Spain), as well as the Left Party of France and the Party «Unconquered France», it is examined how the «new» left radicals construct the subject of political action - «people», «popular majority» or simply «We», opposed «Those above», «caste», «oligarchy». But with all the harshness of anti-capitalist and anti-liberal rhetoric, the conflict of «new» left-wing radicals with the system is more agonistic than antagonistic: they want not to destroy the old institutions, but to win them back from the opposite side, not to replace democracy with the dictatorship of the advanced class, but to «return» its people and expand it.