I
The usual way floating and empty signifiers are distinguished is that the former are terms or concepts with (too) many meanings, while the latter have none. The ready example of a floating signifier in today’s policy discussions is “capitalism,” e.g.,
laissez-faire capitalism, monopoly capitalism, oligarchic capitalism, state-guided capitalism, party-state capitalism, corporate capitalism, corporate-consumerist capitalism, bourgeois capitalism, patrimonial capitalism, digital capitalism, financialized capitalism, political capitalism, social (democratic) capitalism, neoliberal capitalism, crony capitalism, cannibal capitalism, wellness capitalism, petty capitalism, platform capitalism, cloud capitalism, infrastructural capitalism, algorithmic capitalism, aspirational capitalism, welfare capitalism, compliance capitalism, authoritarian capitalism, imperialistic capitalism, turbo-capitalism, post-IP capitalism, green (also red and brown) capitalism, climate capitalism, extractive capitalism, libidinal capitalism, regulatory capitalism, clickbait capitalism, emotional (affective) capitalism, tech capitalism, American capitalism, British capitalism, European capitalism, Western capitalism, transnational capitalism, agrarian capitalism, disaster capitalism, rentier capitalism, industrial capitalism, post-industrial capitalism, fossil capitalism, settler-colonial capitalism, supply chain capitalism, asset manager capitalism, information (data) capitalism, cyber-capitalism, cybernetic capitalism, necro-capitalism, bio-capitalism, war capitalism, crisis capitalism, managerial capitalism, stakeholder capitalism, techno(scientific)-capitalism, pandemic capitalism, caring capitalism, zombie capitalism. . .
Nothing would seem more policy relevant than capitalism, but even a cursory study of the list identifies no shared or central focus on, importantly, markets and prices. The cumulative implication for policy analysis, my profession, is obvious: Just what is the–or even “an”–anti-capitalist alternative?
II
If capitalism as a floating signifier makes a hash of what it is to be “anti-capitalist,” the opposite is the case for the empty signifier of that equally policy relevant neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is almost always a term used by those whose position is anti-neoliberalism. “Recent scholarship has suggested that ‘neoliberalism’ functions almost exclusively a term used by its critics,” where
An empty signifier, in Laclau’s vocabulary, is a name progressively emptied of specific content so
that it can stand for an entire chain of heterogeneous demands: the poorer its intension, the wider the
coalition it can represent (Laclau, 1996, 2005). . . .Laclau was entirely lucid about the epistemic price and entirely explicit that it was worth paying, because the point of such signifiers is not to describe but to assemble [and articulate]. . . .Defenders of the concept argue that neoliberalism names a real macro-phenomenon and that the term’s breadth reflects the breadth of the thing (Peck, 2013; Laruffa, 2024). Our argument does not require denying this: real processes of marketisation, privatisation and financialisation occurred. The question is why they came to be gathered under this name, in this form, on this timeline. . .
A concept that functions as an articulating signifier is unlikely to be disciplined by demonstrations of its descriptive failure, because description was never its principal function, and the productive question may therefore be less ‘what is the correct definition of neoliberalism?’ than ‘what work is the concept doing, for whom, and at what analytical cost?’
Paniagua, Pablo and Vergara, Álvaro (2026). “Neoliberalism As Adversary: The Latin American Construction of an Empty Signifier”. My underlining. https://ssrn.com/abstract=7316099)
The upshot: The analytic costs in relying on and using “neoliberalism”–and by implication other empty signifiers–understandably trouble the policy analyst more than the policy advocate intent on articulating who the adversary is and assembling coalitions to oppose it.
III
Floating and empty signifiers are problematic for policy analysts when these terms, capitalism, neoliberalism and the like (e.g., “cooperative global governance”), are exiled from their specifics and particularities as events, situations and contexts. More, the identification of systemwide patterns (if any) over a range of different events, situations, and contexts–including but not limited to those self-identified as neoliberal or anti-capitalist–is also unavoidable for the analyst.
Why? Because practices surface in pattern recognition and become the signifier of interest–the center of analytic gravity–for the analyst. It’s the practice of protesters waving or holding blank sheets of paper that is significant. Practices for managing assets (A) differ from the older practices of commodification (C), which in turn has changed Marx’s classic formulation for making more money (M’) from M–C–M’ to M–A–M’.
IV
So what? Two implications follow from this reshifted focus to practices.
(1) First, centering the analysis of policy on existing practices helps explain why human values and beliefs are more often the floating and empty signifiers of choice in policy advocacy. Policy analysts are, in my experience, keener at describing the formal and informal routines, procedures, mechanisms and improvisations key critical infrastructures undertake in order that real-time market exchange and transactions take place. In contrast, the policy advocates with whom I’m familiar are more comfortable in focusing on, say, “human greed” and “belief in markets” to explain that which takes place.
The latter quotation marks are not meant to be pejorative, but rather to mark that both signifiers need to be recognized as socially constructed before taking further action (not that greater detail is very much required before proceeding analytically).
(2) Second, the response of policy analysts to policy advocates’ reliance on empty and floating signifiers isn’t to insist advocates must provide these details. Policy advocacy is an entirely different genre than policy analysis. Rather, the burden of proof is on the advocates to demonstrate their signifiers hold regardless of the more granular qualifications or exceptions provided by analysts.
An example is instructive. Asked if there were any parallels in current events to the Roman Empire, Edward Luttwak, a controversial scholar on international, military and grand strategy, offered this:
Well, here is one parallel: after 378 years of success, Rome, which was surrounded by barbarians, slowly started admitting them until it completely changed society and the whole thing collapsed. I am sure you know that the so-called barbarian invasions were, in fact, illegal migrations. These barbarians were pressing against the border. They wanted to come into the Empire because the Romans had facilities like roads and waterworks. They knew that life in the Roman Empire was great. Some of these barbarians were “asylum seekers,” like the Goths who crossed the Danube while fleeing the Huns.
https://im1776.com/2023/10/04/edward-luttwak-interview/?ref=thebrowser.com&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Of course, some read this as inflammatory and go no further. Others dismiss it as outright racist, adding the ad hominem “Just look at who is writing and publishing this stuff!” But the method to adopt as a policy analyst would be to press Luttwak, the policy advocate, for counter-examples.
WHEN COMPLEX IS AS SIMPLE AS IT GETS 