Going Awry: Žižek’s Misfires in Immigration and Radical Politics

The article contends that Slavoj Žižek has moved from a daring theorist of radical universality to a more cautious, and internally inconsistent, political voice. Where he once framed emancipation as a disruptive force emerging from the excluded, he now treats immigration as a problem of control, accepting borders and defending European stability. In doing so, he contradicts his own earlier insight that such limits are not neutral, but central to how capitalism organizes inequality. The result is a hollowing-out of his radicalism: the philosopher retains the rhetoric of rupture, but retreats in practice, trading universal emancipation for a defensive, mostly Eurocentric politics.