capitonnage

is the the idea that political terms determine their meaning according to how they are organized within an overall configuration such that 'fascism was not characterized simply by a series of features like economic corporatism, populism, xenophobic racism, militarism and so on, for these could also be included in other ideological configurations... what made these features 'fascist' was their specific articulation within an overall political project.

This concept, derived from Ernesto Laclau's analysis of ideological hegemony, continues to be used throughout the later Zizek, despite the increasing distance he adopts toward Laclau's work. To recapitulate what is meant by hegemony: 'the Universal acquires concrete existence when some particular content begins to function as its stand-in . . . The fact that this link between the Universal and the particular content that acts as its stand-in is contingent means precisely that it is the outcome of a political struggle for ideological hegemony' (152). This notion of capitonnage, the idea that the meaning of political terms is not given in themselves but according to how they are organized within an overall configuration, allows Zizek to argue against any essential meaning to these terms, to insist that they are always contingent, open to dispute. Thus, on the one hand, he can say: 'Fascism was not characterized simply by a series of features like economic corporatism, populism, xenophobic racism, militarism and so on, for these could also be included in other ideological configurations... what made these features 'fascist' was their specific articulation within an overall political project' (40-1). And, on the other: 'I find [Havel's] idea of civil society doubly problematic. First, the opposition between State and civil society works against as well as for liberty and democracy . . . These [conservative cases] are authentic expressions of civil society 'civil society' designates the terrain of open struggle, the terrain in which antagonisms can articulate themselves, without any guarantee that the 'progressive' side will win' (145). Indeed, Zizek will speak elsewhere of the way that the ideological meaning of such things as homosexuality, bodily discipline and even Islamic fundamentalism is also not fixed but open to ideological negotiation.

capitonnage, n.All

capitonnage