(An interpretation of) Lefort’s characterisation of democracy (with additional features by KK) basic value of democracy 1: the principle of equality - the equalisation of conditions - as a strife to treat everyone as equal (≈ equally valuable as human beings) - does not exclude differences (due to the fact that people are different) and real inequalities (for example, due to circumstances, desert and peoples own actions) basic value of democracy 2: political freedom (as human right) - the right to one’s own political opinion, to express that opinion in public and to that this opinion will be considered part of the political domain of society - Lefort: political freedom is the positive term of a right to resistance to oppression - in opposition to the reduction of freedom to the individual, private realm (≈incompatible with democracy) - contrast: liberalism as reduced to rights of freedom, property and security - Lefort: this reduction is not compatible with the classic, basic formal principles of liberalism, which includes the right of resistance to oppression basic value of democracy 3: human, individual rights - life, liberty etc. - partly reducible to the combination of freedom and equality basic value (internal to the concept) of democracy 4: self-determination - of the people concerning its own issues (political autonomy, internal sovereignty) - independence of the people in relation to the outside (external sovereignty) - Lefort: connected with the constitution and institution of a public space

Lefort’s characterisation of democracy - as form basic value (consequential or generative) of democracy 5: freedom/human rights as demanding/generating the institution of a public space - “the singular thing about the freedoms proclaimed at the end of the eighteenth century is that they are in effect indissociable from the birth of the democratic debate. Indeed, they generate it.” (p. 39) “The negative is effective: it does away with the judge, but it also relates justice to the existence of a public space – a space which is so constituted that everyone is encouraged to speak and to listen without being subject to the authority of an another” (p. 41) - political freedom involves the constitution and institution of a free and open public space, forming an essential part of the political domain - a democratic conception of human rights not reducible to only a non-political space of individual right - Lefort’s claim: internal connection between human rights and the rise of democracy (the democratic revolution)

Lefort on the symbolic dimension: Lefort emphasises the positive and constitutive importance of the symbolic dimension - symbolic: roughly the same as part of our consciousness, public declarations and speech and a public culture - a historically situated general awareness - may be seen as constitutive of the public culture of a society - in contrast with: real in some stronger sense: e.g. laws that include sanctions, the concrete aims of public institutions - examples: freedom, equality, human rights, democracy - may of course also be part of the written constitution of a political society Arendt on human rights: the paradox of “the right to have rights” - rights are tied to the existence of some agency protecting rights, for example the existence of a political society that provides its citizens with such protection - Arendt: => the right of every human being to be a citizen of a political society acknowledging and providing the protection of such rights => human rights are transformed into citizens rights - right to have rights => the right of the inclusion of every human being within a political society that provides the protection of their rights (within the borders of this political society) => may be followed by, for example, international agreements between states Lefort: the symbolic dimension forms a general constitutive background - may exist (have a mode of being) stronger than ‘mere declarations’ without consequences: “the rights of man are not a veil. Far from having the function of masking a dissolution of social bonds which makes everyone a monad, they both testify to the existence of a new network of human relations and bring it into existence” (p. 32) “a symbolic space is established” (p. 33)

Lefort on the symbolic dimension: “the rights of man are not a veil. Far from having the function of masking a dissolution of social bonds which makes everyone a monad, they both testify to the existence of a new network of human relations and bring it into existence” (p. 32) “a symbolic space is established” (p. 33) the constitution and institution of political society involves the the constitution and institution of a form: - including both a staging and a sense-giving - the political society in question cannot withdraw this form without radically changing itself (≈ revolution) - the symbolic dimension therefore inaugurates a framework ontologically situated between a pure normative content and a concrete institutional framework (“the flesh of the political”) normative content of democracy: - a set of basic values and normative demands - moral demands - as foundation of political society - ought to orient the construction of the institutional framework - may remain abstract in case not included in the process of self- constution normative content of democracy as constitutive form of a political society - a set of basic values and normative demands - that ought to form the basis of the constitution of a political society - through a process of self-formation => the ontology of a process of self-constitution

Lefort, totalitarianism vs. democracy representation of the people-as one - strives to overcome division and to institute/constitute the people as a interconnected whole - divisions transposed into the friend-enemy distinction (external or internal enemy) - the internal enemy is to be eliminated in the name of the good of society - the party as representative of the people (≈is the people) power: the embodiment of power in the totality itself, without distinction - the party is the people - the basic principles and aims is the political society as a whole - a certain kind of ontologisation - power is fixed, identity thesis: arises out of and as a reaction to democracy (the form of democracy) - a political mutation plurality, division and conflict constitutive of the people - multiplicity of views - of positions - the temporal element (new members arriving all the time) basic aspect of staging: the disembodiment of power - power of the people ≈ power can never be finally embodied (nowhere and everywhere): “The modern democratic revolution is best recognized in this mutation: there is no power linked to a body. Power appears as an empty place” (“Image of the Body and Totalitarianism” in The Political Forms of Modern Society, p. 303)- - mortality and temporality of power holders - everything is contestable - “no representation of a centre and of the contours of society” (ibid) - no master - identity is open

Lefort, absolutism, totalitarianism, democracy classic absolutism the unity of power is legitimated by reference to an external authority as ground: - religion - hereditary legitimacy (blood) - nature the establishment of a well-defined hierarchy democracy legitimacy of power resides in a constant debate over legitimacy - disappearance of marker of certainty - the seat of power can never be finally occupied, it is constantly open to contestation and change totalitarianism the unity of power is legitimated by reference to an action of filling the void of legitimacy - absolute values - historical origins - religion etc. the establishment of a system of total domination anchored in the values declared, and the specifities of their interpretation