of thought in political theory. He promotes the possibility of an "agonistic democracy," where he finds positive ways to engage certain aspects of political conflict. Connolly proposes a positive ethos of engagement, which could be used to debate political differences. Agonism is based on contestation, but in a political space where the discourse is one of respect, rather than violence. Unlike toleration, agonistic respect actively engages adversaries in political contests over meaning and power. Unlike antagonism, it shows respect by admitting the ultimate contestability of even one’s own deepest held commitments. Agonism is a practice of democratic engagement that destabilizes appeals to authoritative identities and fixed universal principles. Connolly's critical challenges to John Rawls's theory of justice and Jürgen Habermas's theory on deliberative democracy have spawned a host of new literature in this area. His work Identity\Difference (1991) contains an exhaustive look at positive possibilities via democratic contestation. Liberalism Agonistic pluralism Agonistic pluralism, also referred to as "agonistic democracy," is primarily framed as an agonistic alternative to Habermasian models of deliberative democracy. Theorists of agonistic pluralism, including post-modernist thinkers Chantal Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, and William E. Connolly, reject the Habermasian notion of a rational universal consensus that can be reached through deliberation alone. In order for a singular rational consensus to be reached, this would require that all parties endorse the same starting ethico-political principles. Yet, in multicultural pluralist societies, agonistic pluralists contend that this will never truly be the case, since divergent social identities will create irreconcilable differences between individuals. It is argued that Habermasian models of deliberative democracy are ill-equipped for pluralist societies, since they simply purport new paradigms of liberal democratic theory, which rely on the same rationalistic, universalistic, and individualistic theoretical frameworks. Furthermore, agonistic pluralists argue that power cannot be relegated solely to the private sphere, and power hierarchies will necessarily be replicated in public deliberative processes. This makes it such that any "consensus" relies on forms of social domination and necessitates the exclusion of certain interests. Many of these agonistic thinkers point to the ideological entrenchment of global neoliberalism as evidence of how presumed consensus can reinforce hegemony and preclude opposition. The strong influence of Antonio Gramsci in agonistic theory can be seen here, primarily with his theory of cultural hegemony and his claim that any established consensus or norm is reflective of broader structures of power. Thus, for agonistic pluralists, if reason alone cannot