The space of diversity politics, grounded in a recognition of multiple forms of social difference, vitalised by its concern for multiple forms of inequality, reverses the monolithic tendencies found within Marxism and radical feminism. Yet, in its enthusiasm to challenge disadvantage and to celebrate variety, diversity politics comes unstuck when it is confronted with less attractive ways of living and being. As I discussed in chapter 2, radical democrats and radical pluralists, such as Chantal Mouffe and Jeffrey Weeks, do not deny the need to draw limits in the differences worth supporting; however, their work gives little detailed or practical guidance on how these limits can be drawn. Practices such as oppression, subordination and limiting diversity sound like solid bases for identifying constituencies not worthy of support, yet even these terms can be ‘subverted’ in a pluralist model of power and discursively deployed against opponents by groups such as hunters, religious minorities and smokers.

My argument in this chapter is that we need a more detailed and theorised approach to thinking about different social constituencies.