The lack of freedom and tolerance in today's political landscape may make us outraged. The shift towards liberal democracy can create a fertile ground for inequality and lead to irrational conditions in democracy under the guise of political consensus.



Democracy ought to provide inherent equality, freedom of organization, opinion, and expression. However, today's democracy seems to be an empty promise. For instance, at the collegiate level, the General Election should be the highest forum of democracy, but it is usually marred by unqualified and incompetent candidates, unfair KPU (General Election Commission) performance, and a lack of tolerance for pluralism. All these negative phenomena indicate an irrational condition in democracy based on the pretext of political consensus.


Real democracy should bring freedom and equality, but paradoxically, decay is built on the pretext of democracy itself. Radical democracy, a concept proposed by Chantal Mouffe, can provide a response and overcome this paradox of democracy.


Radical democracy is an attempt to radicalize democracy by demanding continuous conflict, dispute, and ideological debates to capture discourses. In a sense, radical democracy becomes a hegemonic struggle. In radical democracy, all forms of ideas and ideologies compete using their political articulation, where ideas are constantly produced.


Participation is one of the most important things in radical democracy. In other words, radical democracy requires "noise" and "turmoil" to unveil stability for the realization of emancipatory politics. Mouffe states that there is no consensus in democracy, only hegemonic practices that are vulnerable and open to be fought by counter-hegemonic practices.


Agreements or majority decisions in parliament and general elections are the result of voting. However, in radical democracy, the agreements reached are not static but dynamic and can be fought through ideological conflict and competition. Thus, radical democracy can be a solution to the decay of democracy that often occurs in Indonesia.


In radical democracy, there is a discourse contestation and conflict to seize hegemony in public space. However, if this contestation causes wounds to society, such as violence and even war, a differentiation between antagonism and agonism relations is necessary, and a transformation from antagonistic to agonistic relations should be pursued.


Antagonistic relations in the political context trigger the relation between us as friends and them as enemies in democratic politics. This relation will lead to disagreement and the consequence of dichotomy between friend and foe who do not share the democratic space.


In this context, the enemy is defined as an entity that must be destroyed and eliminated both ideologically and existentially in the democratic public space. The antagonistic relation between friend and foe must be addressed so that conflict and disagreement do not damage the political association in democracy.


Therefore, radical democracy must transform from antagonism to agonism relations. Agonism relations do not pretend to eliminate the dimension of conflict on one side and do not get trapped in negotiating or reaching agreements through deliberation. In other words, agonism relations prevent conflict from destroying political associations in democracy.


From agonism relations, the relation between us as friends and them as enemies turns into an adversarial relation, namely, an agonistic friend or adversary relation. Opposition that has a shared position in democracy but has different discourses, interests, and ideas that must be rejected.


Radical democracy implies a socialist dimension in upholding democratic struggle, thus ending capitalist production relations, which are the roots of many subordinate relations. Capitalism in the political domain can be interpreted as making humans or every individual a commodity, which can be picked from each individual, and it is the right to vote that can be used to legitimize power.


Democracy is not only limited to general elections; regardless of this, radical democracy has aspirations, goals, and ideals for emancipation that are the main thing in radical democracy.