Articulation is at the centre of politics: individual as well as collective political actors would be unable to interact and argue were they not articulating their interests and claims in a way comprehensible to others. Accordingly, articulation is an essential element of all discursive formations – and by the same token, it is an act that has to be performed before it can constitute an argumentative relationship between political actors. Notwithstanding its central role in discursive and political formations, articulation is surprisingly undertheorized, and in particular its performative dimension had been neglected. There are fragments of theory in various social sciences and in the humanities, but they were discussed separately and never integrated into a larger framework that acknowledges all dimensions of articulation. This paper discusses the different strands of theoretical reflection and develops an outline of a theory of articulation.

Colloquium: Current Research and Debates