Claude Lefort (1924 – 2010) Publications and translations Le Travail de l'œuvre, Machiavel, 1972, Machiavelli in the Making, 2012 Les Formes de l'histoire. Essais d'anthropologie politique, 1978 L’Invention démocratique, 1981 Essais sur le politique : XIX e et XX e siècles, The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, 1986 Democracy and Political Theory, 1989 Écrire à l'épreuve du politique, 1992, Writing: The Political Test, 2000 La Complication, 1999, Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy, 2007 Le Temps présent, Backgrounds: - student of Merleau-Ponty (1940’ onwards), editor of his posthumous works - member ( ) of ‘libertarian socialist’ group Socialisme ou Barbarie, mainly lead by Cornelius Castoriadis Why Lefort? - to a certain extent highly influential on the contemporary debate: Laclau & Mouffe, Rancière etc. - for its own sake: posing a today highly important issue: what is the essence of democracy?

Lefort: political philosophy a return to political philosophy - its classic questions - especially a focus on what he calls the form of political society, as constitutive of the whole of society - descriptive characterisations of these forms - and deep-going analysis of constitutive aspects of political society phenomenological? - a phenomenology of the political as constitutive form (≈ political ontology) - seldom refers to the phenomenological mode of thinking, lots of references to Merleau-Ponty - the specific forms themselves historical - the necessity of having a form general? (at least insofar as there is political society) normativity in Lefort? - fierce defence of democracy, at least on the level of the general form of society => distinction between the general form and particular institutional settings => opens up the question “What is democracy?” - in Lefort democracy is contrasted, in different ways, from classical absolutism, modern totalitarianism and the liberalist interpretation of democracy - liberalism/democracy as political theory: emphasises the primacy of liberal rights to democracy or democracy as instrumental - normative justifications? (at least in a conditional mode: if democracy is a good thing, then …) - political philosophy: “Someone who practices [political philosophy] cannot yield entirely to the illusion that he is removed from his own time … from the sense of a future that eludes his knowledge and that both excites his imagination and brings him back to an awareness of his limits” (Writing, p. xli)

Lefort: political philosophy a return to political philosophy - especially a focus on what he calls the form of political society, as constitutive of the whole of society the political: the (specific) formation (mise en forme) or regime that is constitutive of and conditions societal life - taken as a whole - not a specific and separate section of society compare Arendt: the political as a sphere of freedom above and partly independent of taking care of the necessities of life - and of the social as administration of everyday life in common => Arendt: politics as free communicative interaction on basic common issues Lefort: modern society as a division of spheres: - economic, juridical, social, private, political - thesis: this division conceals what is constitutive of the form of society as a whole - in addition: this form is partly constitutive of these very divisions themselves? Lefort on the political: the constitutive form of a society - different forms in different societies => plurality of forms - still: general forms! - carriers of some general idea? => typology of forms of political society - democracy, totalitarianism etc. - the focus on such forms enables us to distinguish between the most fundamental differences between societies and the fundamental questions of of choices

Lefort, forms of society the political: the (specific) formation (mise en forme) or regime that is constitutive of and conditions of societal life - taken as a whole staging (mise en scène) the overall structure of the form - including its basic principles, values etc. partly analogous to the construction of a theatrical stage - ramification, borders - basic set-up and organisation the staging of a political society - borders and their definition: nation-state- borders, definition of the people etc. - the set-up of the mode of power (democracy, totalitarian etc.) - institutional organisation sense giving (mise en sens) - the modes of thinking that define, condition and orient this form - constitutes a space of intelligibility - institutes divisions of just-unjust, true-false, normal-pathological etc. - ideology? - or the modes of thinking inherent in certain practices? compare Foucault: - forms of power - constitutes themselves as power partly by means of a structuring of intelligibility, partly in terms of distinctions and divisions - Lefort: the political as form is not reducible to a form of power that produces and subjugates!

Lefort, some major claims the uniqueness of democratic society to other forms “… democracy … inaugurates a history which abolishes the place of the referent from which the law once derived its transcendence” (Democracy and Political Theory, p. 39) - in other words: lack/abolishment of a secure foundation - “the disappearance of markers of certainty” - “.. the division between legitimate and illegitimate … is simply removed from the realm of certainty” (p. 39) main general background thesis: - the political order of a society lack any possibility to secure a foundation outside of its own constitutive process - in many cases throughout human history attempts have been made to claim the existence of a secure or external foundation society? - a more or less tightly organised interaction between human beings: division of labor etc. - Hegel: civil society - a society may be anarchic (≈ lack an established order with a centre and a hierarchical power structure) political order - the constitution and institutionalisation of a organised unity - often involves a set of foundational principles and a power hierarchy - the foundational principles in part function to legitimise the political order - basic question: how do we justify or ground such principles - or: which principles can actually be justified in a sufficiently well-grounded manner

Lefort, some major claims the uniqueness of democratic society to other forms “… democracy … inaugurates a history which abolishes the place of the referent from which the law once derived its transcendence” (Democracy and Political Theory, p. 39) - in other words: lack/abolishment of a secure foundation - “the disappearance of markers of certainty” - “.. the division between legitimate and illegitimate … is simply removed from the realm of certainty” (p. 39) main general background thesis: - the political order of a society lack any possibility to secure a foundation outside of its own constitutive process - in many cases throughout human history attempts have been made to claim the existence of a secure or external foundation - nature - religious foundation - heritage (monarchy) thesis: these are all historically situated and human constructs ≈ lack any foundation outside themselves - Lefort: co-foundational: the foundation and the institutionalisation of a certain regime is one and the same thing (≈ the foundation is created in the act itself) - post-metaphysical thinking, post-foundationalism compare: the social contract-tradition: in-between foundationalism and post-foundationalism - the political order as contract between the citizens, the fondations of this contract often sought outside: natural law, basic inalienable rights, reason, a general moral foundation

Lefort, some major claims the uniqueness of democratic society to other forms “… democracy … inaugurates a history which abolishes the place of the referent from which the law once derived its transcendence” (Democracy and Political Theory, p. 39) - in other words: lack/abolishment of a secure foundation - “the disappearance of markers of certainty” - “.. the division between legitimate and illegitimate … is simply removed from the realm of certainty” (p. 39) democracy is a form where the locus of power remain empty - ”the locus of power becomes an empty place” - in comparison with other forms democracy defines itself in terms of the impossibility for anyone in particular to fully (spatially and temporally) embody power - power of the people: in principle anyone at anytime belong to the people - may legitimately claim to be a part of the people - the category of the people: lacks absolute foundation, must be constructed through a process - new persons arrive all the time (the newly born, the immigrant etc.) => the importance of elections as part of democracy - “a regime founded upon the legitimacy of a debate as to what is legitimate and what is illegitimate – a debate which is necessarily without any guarantor and without any end” (p. 39) general diagnostic thesis: - the importance for most democratic regimes to conceal the lack of a certain foundation and the ontological emptiness of the seat of power - democracy is inherently haunted by insecurity (already on the level of principles) => threat: the risk of the appearance of ’fulfillers’ of the foundation: appeal to a return to a transcendent origin or foundation (historic people, morality, religion, charismatic authority etc.)