A New Hegemony. Indignation, Populism and Democratic Praxis in Spain, 2011 - 2016

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This study follows a twofold, empirical as well as theoretical ambition. In empirical terms, I trace the political change that has occurred in Spain between 2011 and 2016. This change has put forth a radicalized notion of democracy as well as a strong plead for social justice. The mobilizations and protest camps of the so-called Indignados (Outraged) mark the starting point of a wide-reaching analysis that combines discourse analysis, ethnography and semi-structured interviews. Therewith I aim at both an in depth and a broad reconstruction of Spain’s political developments. The analysis of the Indignados and their spin-off political party Podemos demarks the main body of the study (Chap. III-V). In these chapters, I launch an analysis that traverses civil society and the political system and combines the reconstruction of societal semantics as well as micrological practices - crystallizing in a panoramic account of Spain’s social change. This ambition is bracketed by a broader contextualization that situates the Spanish developments within the country’s broader historical order (Chap. II and VI). Intertwined with the empirical analysis, I aim at developing an expanded theory of hegemony. I flesh out the poststructuralist approach of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in both theoretical and analytical terms to accomplish their promise that their discourse theory can actually operate as politically sensitive theory of society. Therefore, I relativize the anti-essentialism and formalism of Laclau/Mouffe and flesh out an approach that does justice to constructedness and materiality, symbolic and sensorial dimensions, the chances of political articulation and the tendencies towards sedimentation of social relations. On the horizon of the present study thus stands a post-foundationalist social theory. The latter synthesizes discourse theoretical, praxeological and neo-materialist positions to uphold: the moments of the Social and the Political are equally constitutive for society.