Vanishing mediator

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In terms of political history, it refers to social movements, which operate in a particular way to influence politics, until they either are forgotten or change their purpose.[3]

Fredric Jameson introduced the term in a 1973 essay ("The Vanishing Mediator: Narrative Structure in Max Weber," in New German Critique 1 [Winter, 1973]: 52-89). Alain Badiou uses a similar, but more explicitly post-structuralist term (″terme évanouissant″ or ″vanishing term″) in Théorie du sujet.

Since, this concept has been adopted by Žižek in "For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political factor", where he uses it in a political sense, similar to Marx's Analysis of Revolution.[1]