Montserrat Herrero, the principal investigator for the Religion and Civil Society project of the Institute of Culture and Society (ICS), and Carlos Goñi, collaborator in the same project, have been published separate chapters in the book Democracia: ¿consenso o conflicto? Agonismo y teoría deliberativa en la política contemporánea (Democracy: Consensus or conflict? Agonism and deliberative theory in contemporary politics). Professor Herrero's chapter is entitled 'El poder político del lenguaje' ('The political power of language') and Carlos Goñi's chapter is entitled 'El fin de las ideologías. El fin de una profecía' ('The end of ideology: The end of prophecy.')

Javier Franze, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, coordinated the volume. In addition to the ICS scholars, the following scholars also contributed to the book: Julián González, PhD from the Center for Advanced Studies of the National University of Córdoba (Argentina); Cecilia Lesgart, researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET-Argentina) and professor in the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations at the National University of Rosario (Argentina); José Luis López de Lizaga, professor of Philosophy at the University of Zaragoza; Carlos Rico Motos, researcher at the Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA) - Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC); Manuel Toscano, Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of Málaga; and Andrés Tutor de Ureta, Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Castilla-La Mancha.

The book's abstract

With a distancing between citizens and politics in general, there is growing concern about the quality of democracy. After years of identifying democracy with consensus, there is an emerging notion that conflict is part of democratic pluralism. The key question is whether democracy is stronger and firmer when it is able to accommodate large consensus within it or, on the contrary, when it can support conflict and accommodate radically opposed positions.

On the one hand, democracy can be considered as a conflict, a struggle for meaning in which "he who participates in politics does not play within the system's rules, but rather invents them himself" as Ernesto Laclau argues, along with scholars such as Jacques Rancière and Chantal Mouffe. On the other hand, for authors such as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, the ability to reach reasonable agreements and achieve understanding characterizes democracy. These reflections provide some theoretical keys for analyzing topical issues such as depoliticization, the debate surrounding the Historical Memory Law and constitutional reform.