In thinking about the link between political and fantasmatic logics we could say that the articulation of fantasy and the political dimension varies, depending on whether or not the equivalential or differential aspects of a discursive construction predominate (150).
The predominance of the LOE, in which the articulation of political discourse is dominated by a logic of substitution that links different demands together, harbours the possibility of a more populist or revolutionary politics. In this context, fantasmatic logics may take the form of a narrative in which an internal obstacle (or ‘enemy within’) is deemed responsible for the blockage of identity, while promising a fullness or harmony to come. This logic is clearly evident in Leninst forms of Marxist discourse, in which a particular class enemy has to be forcibly overthrown (usually by revolutionary means) in the name of a universal class (the proletariat), so as to bring about complete human emancipation. 150
But it can equally apply to projects such as Thatcherism in which a failing social democratic consensus (condensed in the figure of the trade unionist qua ‘enemy within’) was opposed in the name of a ‘strong state and a free economy’ …
The predominance of the LOD in political practices in which the articulation of political discourse is dominated by a logic of combination that decouples demands, and addresses them in a punctual fashion by channelling them into the existing system of rule, harbours the possibility of a more institutionalist or reformist politics. Here the fantasmatic logics may be articulated by means of a narrative in which an external obstacle or enemy is deemed to be a threat to an already existing fullness and harmony. For example a ‘Marxist’ or ‘Communist threat’ … was presented … as a direct threat to South Africa’s ‘free enterprise’, ‘Christian values’ and ‘Western freedoms’. … In short, we witness the efforts to disarticulate the growing political opposition to the apartheid state in the naming of an external enemy which threatens the internal stability and prosperity of the country … coupled with the defence of a fully constituted and harmonious order in the here and now.
War on terror’ discourse, in which values and stability of liberal democracies are confronted by a foreign ‘axis of evil’, ‘international terrorism’ and an ‘arc of extremism’.