The Democratic Invention. A Reading of Lefort.

Abstract

In this paper I will present the way in which Lefort interprets modern democracy as a new form of society in regard to the sources of law and legitimacy. Lefort is a thinker who is difficult to place within the context of contemporary political theory: he not only defends democracy against Marxism but also thinks that this form of society cannot be circumscribed within the limits of the modern state, nor be understood through the categories that the tradition of political philosophy has developed to distinguish between political regimes. Lefort combines the defense of democracy with a radical critique of the established order. He identifies the democratic invention with the institution of a dynamic that makes, by right, the radical questioning of law the source of political legitimacy.