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Paul Hirst began his career as a Marxist, and in his later work he made important contributions to numerous debates, the most notorious of which was his pronounced scepticism towards the idea of globalisation. However, Hirst's principal legacy to political theory was the development of his normative theory of 'associative democracy'. This article presents a critique of Hirst's theory emphasising his indebtedness to the tradition of English political pluralism. On a preliminary analysis, Hirst's project appears to have been predicated on a normative defence of voluntarism, individualism and pluralism. However, I make the case that on closer examination this is undermined and contradicted in his work – and in the work of the earlier English pluralists – by an implicit assumption of social unity. This assumption is manifest in the functionalism and corporatism that Hirst presented as necessary components of pluralism, which in turn reflect his unwarranted presumption that industrial productivity, efficient economic governance and welfare provision represent impartial and incontestable axioms of social organisation.

In this paper, I delineate one tradition of contemporary political thought that has emerged within the more general climate of difference & diversity. This is 'agonistic pluralism.' The paper evaluates the recent work of three authors, who exemplify this strand of political thinking; William Connolly, Chantal Mouffe, & James Tully. Over the past decade, each of these three has developed the notion of agonistic pluralism. The task here is to examine points of comparison between them. I compare the three authors' conceptions of politics & of the dimension of the political. I make the case that their work complements one another, they each endorse broad notions of the political; & they understand politics to be constitutive of social relations. Nevertheless, the forms of politics that they describe differ from one another. It is my contention that these forms of politics are interdependent & mutually reinforcing. However, I maintain that for their work to be understood in this way, the political (or constitutive) practices described by Connolly & Tully -- struggles for self-making & for recognition respectively -- must be refigured as forms of sub-constitutional politics. These forms of politics will make up necessary elements of a viable pluralist society, but they are played out within multiple public spheres made possible by -- what we might call -- the quasi-republican political constitution elaborated by Mouffe. 48 References. Adapted from the source document.

In this article I evaluate the conceptions of politics and of 'the political' characteristic of 'radical pluralism'. I argue that in order to comprehend the radically pluralist conception of politics it is necessary to grasp the post-structuralist critique of the philosophical principle of identity. The concern with the interface between politics and ethics – which is typical of the radical pluralist approach – is also explored. Throughout the article contrast is made with the conventional pluralism of American political science. I conclude with a consideration of the importance of radical pluralism, with reference to the difficulties this may present for the methods and suppositions of political science traditionally understood.