Professor of Political Theory at the University of Westminster, she studied at the universities of Louvain, Paris and Essex. She has taught at various universities in Europe, North America and Latin America and has held research positions at Harvard, Cornell, the University of California, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton and the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. Between 1989 and 1995, she was Directrice de Programme at the International Faculty of Philosophy in Paris. She is author of the books «Gramscian and Marxist Theory», «Dimensions of Radical Democracy», «Deconstruction and Pragmatism», «The Challenge of Carl Schmitt», «The Return of the Political» (1993) and «The Democratic Paradox» (2000), as well as co-author of «Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics» (1985) with Ernesto Laclau. Her most recent work is «On the Political» (Routledge, 2005).