4.5 - Gould, Carol C. - Claude Lefort on Modern Democracy (en)

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Claude Lefort on Modern Democracy

Claude Lefort on Modern Democracy

by Carol C. Gould

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 3+4 / 1990, pages: 337-345, on www.ceeol.com.
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REVIEW ESSAY

CLAUDE LEFORT ON MODERNDEMOCRACYCarol c. Gould

Claude Lefort's Democracy and Political Theory is a translation of Essaissur le politique (xixe-xxe siecles) , a collection of previously publishedarticles. 1 The essays are grouped under four headings: "On ModernDemocracy"; "On Revolution"; "On Freedom"; and "On the IrreducibleElement". Although the essays have the coherence of a single point of view,the first group presents the fundamentals of his approach to the theory ofdemocracy and this will be the focus of my discussion here.

It is appropriate to note at the outset what I take to be the strengths ofLefort's position and our areas of agreement, before proceeding to thecriticism of his views. Perhaps the basic strength of Lefort's approach is hisemphasis on democracy and on rights as central categories of a renewedpolitical philosophy, rather than simply on questions of power or of classanalysis. Likewise, he correctly rejects certain polarities that have characterized nineteenth- and twentieth-century political thought. Thus herepudiates (unsurprisingly) totalitarian, organic, or as I would say holist,modes of political and social organization, but he does not take recourseinstead in an abstract individualism or what is called in the United Statesneoconservatism, and in France, neoliberalism. Further, Lefort rightlyargues for a mediation rather than a contraposition of the individual and thesocial; and rejects the polar alternatives of an essentialist, or as he puts it,naturalist theory of human nature on the one hand and a relativist historicismon the other.In Lefort's account, democracy is understood by contrast with earlierforms of social and political life where society was taken as an organic totalityand power was embodied and distinctively situated in the ruler or the "head"of state. Democracy represents "a political mutation of the symbolic order",or "a symbolic reconstitution of the social" , in which power has no canonicallocation and where legitimation of authority or the use of power is always inquestion. Democracy therefore is characterized by Lefort as involvingconflict or division among competing interests or claims, whether ofindividuals or of groups and characteristically among political parties; andtherefore, an ongoing contestation of prevailing authority which requiresperiodic elections of representatives. For Lefort, those rights and libertiesthat are characteristic of such a democracy have their origin in the very act ofbeing asserted and claimed as rights, specifically in the French and Americandeclarations of rights at the end of the eighteenth century. This notion ofPraxis International/O: 3/4 October /990 & January /99/ 0260-8448$2.00


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338 Praxis Internationaldemocracy as entailing the legitimation of conflict, periodic elections, rights,and liberties is intended to be seen in stark contrast not only with the earlierforms of polity as organic totality but also with modern totalitarian regimes.We may see from this that Lefort's conception of democracy is limited tothe domain of the political and indeed even to the particular view of politicaldemocracy associated with American pluralist theory, for example, in theworks of Schumpeter or the early Dahl. It is true that Lefort does not accept asimple identification of the political with government or the state. In fact, heproposes that democracy introduces a new "public space, which is always ingestation, and whose existence blurs the conventional boundaries betweenthe political and the non-political" (p. 35). Nevertheless, Lefort distinguishesthroughout between the political and the economic, as for example in hiscommendation of Hannah Arendt's distinction between these realms or inhis discussion of human rights. And therefore, the idea of extendingdemocracy beyond the political thus defined either does not occur to him or isrejected as introducing the dangers of totalitarianism. Likewise, although hetalks of a "new democratic society" (p. 25), which presumably extendsdemocracy to the social, the social is understood here in terms of the public asa whole. Thus he writes, "Politics can exist only in the presence of a space inwhich human beings recognize themselves as citizens, in which they situateone another within the limits of a common world ... " (p. 49).Lefort thus fails to see how democracy is relevant to economic life or tosocial institutions of smaller scale than the public as a whole. Specifically,Lefort seems to share with Arendt the idea that the economic is a meresphere of needs to which democracy is irrelevant. But clearly there arecommon "worlds" (in his phrase), or what I would call common activities,within this economic sphere, for example, firms or companies, to whichdemocratic modes of decision making would be appropriate, involving rightsof participation for all who work in the firm. Likewise, in social life, there aresituations where people pursue common activities with shared goals, whetherinstitutionalized or not, to which democratic participation would be relevant.

Arendt was wrong, I think, to limit the idea of a common world and ofaction among equals to politics and to exclude it from the economy, which isrelegated to the private. Equality for her emerges only in public, that is, asthe equality of citizens and not as fundamental human equality. But there is astrong and extended argument that could be given for such fundamentalhuman equality. I have given a version of it in my book on democratictheory.2 On the basis of the equal agency of all individuals, I argue for aprinciple of equal positive freedom, that is, a prima facie equal right to theconditions of self-development. The normative consequences of such aprinciple of equality are a requirement of reciprocity in the private sphereunderstood as the domain ofthe personal; and a requirement for equal rightsto participate in decision making not only in political and social life but also incommon economic activity such as that engaged in by members of the samefirm. More generally, I argue that whenever individuals engage in a commonactivity, their freedom requires an equal right to participate in decisionmaking concerning the course of that activity. Further, the principle of equal

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Praxis International 339positive freedom also requires some degree of equality in the distribution ofthe material and social conditions for self-development. It should be notedthat here the distinction is not between the private as including both thepersonal and economic, and the public as the political and social, as it is forArendt and seemingly for Lefort as well. Rather, I would define the privateas the personal and the noninstitutionalized interpersonal - what we callprivate life in colloquial usage - and the public as including the political, thesocial, and the economic of various scope,where these typically involveinstitutionalized forms of common activity.Lefort would probably agree with the criticism made of Arendt hereconcerning equality, that is, on her limitation of it to equality among citizensrather than as fundamental human equality, though I am not sure on whatbasis he 'Nould justify this fundamental equality. However, he agrees withArendt on the separation of the political and the economic, which he alsoseems to see as a division between the public space of politics and the privatesphere. And while he is appropriately critical of Arendt's lack of interest inmodern democracy interpreted as political democracy, he does not recognizethat democratic modes of decision making are required within the economicsphere as well. It is clear that what Lefort fears is that the failure to separatethese two spheres will lead to totaliarian domination of economic life by astate apparatus. But what he fails to see is that the spheres may be keptseparate, as I propose they should be in my book, and yet hold thatdemocracy is analogously required in each of these spheres.

If we characterize Lefort's limitation of democracy exclusively to thepolitical as a limitation of scope, we may also suggest that his view suffersfrom a limitation of form. Because he sees democracy as essentiallyconstituted by conflict or division, he focuses almost exclusively on votingand elections among contesting parties as the paradigmatic form ofdemocratic practice. Thus according to Lefort, in democracy "the exercise ofpower is subject to the procedures of periodical redistributions. It representsthe outcome of a controlled contest with permanent rules. This phenomenonimplies an institutionalization of conflict" (p. 17). What is overly narrowabout this conception of democratic process is that it ignores the importanceof democratic participation in decision making contexts other than voting inelections. Thus it fails to take into account the role of participation indiscussion, the possibility of agreement by consensus, and voting in nonelectoral contexts, for example, on specific policies or procedures.These modes become important on a model of democracy which sees it aspervasive throughout the various contexts of social life and in which suchparticipation itself is a condition for individual self-development. Such analternative view does not denigrate the essential role of elections nor theabsolute requirement of openness to contestation. Nor does it amount to arequirement for participatory democracy in all situations. Clearly, noteveryone should participate in decisions about everything, and suchparticipation includes representational forms and need not be participatoryin every context. Nonetheless, the requirement for democracy cannot becaptured simply by a model of elections and parties. Granted, Lefort does


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340 Praxis Internationaldiscuss the idea of a public space of discourse in politics in which legislationmay constantly be put in question, but it remains unclear whether this bearson participation in decision making in specific situations. Indeed, Lefort'smodel of multi-party electoral politics is curiously reminiscent of Americanpluralist theories of democracy. In such theories, democracy is seen asessentially a way of maintaining equilibrium among groups with conflictinginterests, by periodic elections in which elites representing these interestscompete for power at the ballot box. There are many problems with thispluralist theory, not the least of which is that it reduces democracy to theinstrumental function of maintaining political equilibrium and excludes suchfactors as common interests and participation.Turning now to Lefort's discussion of human rights: Lefort appropriatelyrecognizes the importance of human rights for political theory and correctly,I think, gives a central role to civil liberties and political rights. However, heseems to feel it necessary to hold that such political freedoms and rights havepriority over economic and social rights, (a position, we may observe, that isanalogous to Rawls's notion of a similar lexical ordering). Here, again,Lefort appears to be moved by the specter of an orthodox Marxist emphasison economic rights at the expense of political liberties and rights. One maysympathize with his rejection of this alternative one-sidedness, especially inview of the totalitarian consequences that such a position has engendered.But Lefort's subordination of all economic and social rights to the political isone-sided as well. On Lefort's view, liberties and political rights constitutewhat he calls political freedom, which he sees as required for democracy. Butit seems clear that the major economic right to means of subsistence is equallyrequired for democracy, since without means of subsistence human beingswould not survive and hence could be neither free nor democratic. Withoutlife nopolitics. That is to say, without a human right to security ofone's personorwithout a human right to means of subsistence, there can be no democracy.This is not to say that subsistence rights are prior to civil and political rightsor can replace them, but rather that neither by itself is sufficient fordemocracy and they are both jointly necessary. I would hold that these areboth-basic human rights, but I see them as required not simply by democracyalone, but more fundamentally by the value of freedom. Indeed, democracyitself is an essential condition for this more fundamental value and istherefore justified by it. This seems to contrast with Lefort's strategy oftaking democracy as a value in itself. On the view I propose, human rights arerights to the conditions of freedom and include both basic and non-basicrights. On this view, civil liberties and political rights on the one hand (that is,what has been called negative freedom) and rights to means of subsistence onthe other are basic rights in as much as they are among the conditions for anyhuman action whatever. Thus the difference I have with Lefort on the scopeof human rights is that I believe we need both basic political and economicrights and that we needn't choose between them.

There is one parenthetical remark to be made here concerning Lefort'streatment ofMarx and especially ofMarx's view of rights. This is an old issue.But Lefort's reading of Marx seems to be unfair to Marx's own view and to


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Praxis International 341the text, though his criticisms surely do apply to the views of a significantnumber ofMarxists. Lefort's Marx has no use for so-called bourgeois rightsand sees them as manifestations of "bourgeois egotism" - this based mainlyon Lefort's reading of Marx's essay "On the Jewish Question". But Marx'scriticism of the political rights of freedom and equality is that they areabstract and are undermined by concrete inequalities and lack of freedom insocial and economic life, ~ n d thus that they are inadequate in themselves. Infact, the thrust ofMarx's "On the Jewish Question" is to argue against BrunoBauer, who rejected political emancipation as a false goal, that such politicalemancipation is a condition for human emancipation. This is furthersupported by Marx's analysis elsewhere, for example in the Grundrisse, tothe effect that abstract freedom of the individual and abstract equality arenecessary but not sufficient conditions for full human freedom. Marx'sspecific critique of rights and of "abstract morality" is that they are used asclaims of universal freedom to mask real inequalities and domination insocial and economic life.In view of my two previous comments about Lefort's conceptions ofdemocracy and of rights, we may now briefly consider his attempt toovercome the polarity between the individual and the social. I would agreewith his critique of totalitarianism with regard to its organicism and itspresupposition of a radical interdependence of individuals. But if Iunderstand Lefort correctly, I would differ with the alternative he proposesto this organicism or holism. The alternative is what Lefort calls division orconflict among competing voices in the public space, given what he calls "thedissolution of the markers of certainty" and the systemic ambiguity of thelocus of power. But this division does not yet yield differentiated, concreteindividuals with agency. Rather, individuals appear only in aggregation ininterest groups or as isolated voices in the situations of conflict that for Lefortare paradigmatic of democracy; or they appear simply as numbers, asstatistics, once loose of their previous social bonds, and therefore as ananonymous crowd or "das Man". Whatever individuation Lefort acknowledges is defined by, and is for the sake of, the model of democracy heproposes. This is clear also from his account of freedom as essentiallypolitical freedom which serves as the condition for democracy, rather thanconversely as the freedom of the individual for which democracy is thecondition. This latter view is the one I have argued for in my book, but itshould be stressed that it is not a conception of f reedom for isolatedindividuals but rather for what I have characterized as social individuals orindividuals-in-relations.Likewise, I have trouble with Lefort's conception ofthe social. Because heconstrues the alternatives as organic, totalistic sociality on the one hand anddivision or political conflict on the other, there seems to be no space left forthe important phenomenon of non-totalistic and non-conflictual commonactivity. Such common activity, I would hold, is defined by shared goals andjoint or cooperative activity to realize such goals. Lefort seems unable toacknowledge this sort of common activity - which is usually on a smaller scalethan the common or public interest of society as a whole - because he


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342 Praxis Internationalidentifies the common interest or the public good with an overarching onewhich opens the way to social domination and political control ostensibly inthe interests of society as a whole. But assuredly there are many such cases ofnon-totalistic and non-conflictual social activity, for example, in the contextsof work, education, and voluntary associations, where there are shared goalsto varying degrees and cooperative activity to realize them. Where in thepresent such activities are not yet marked by democratic participation indecision making or where the goals are not yet freely determined thoughjointly pursued, I would argue that there is a normative requirementgrounded in the equal freedom of agents for such democratization.

We now turn to what probably is the most central philosophical issue inLefort's argument and in his rethinking the political. This is his claim forepistemological uncertainty as the essential condition for democracy.Related to this is his rejection of naturalism - orwhat we call essentialism- inthe conception of human nature, on the one hand, and of historicism, on theother. To summarize Lefort's complex view very briefly as I understand it:Wc need to rethink the political for our own time, recognizing the newcharacter of modern democracy (as against classical views) and against thebackground of twentieth century totalitarianism. Its fundamental characteris that it introduces a new public space in which there is no locus of power andwhich is essentially conflictual. What power there is is distributed by regularelections. Legitimacy is always open to question; or as Lefort puts it,"[M]odern democracy invites us to replace the notion of a regime governedby laws, of a legitimate power, by the notion of a regime founded upon thelegitimacy of a debate as to what is legitimate and what is illegitimate - adebate which is necessarily without any guarantee and without any end"(p. 39). For him, this debate and this new public space replaces any doctrineof natural rights as constitutive of democracy; and was initiated by theAmerican and French declarations of rights at the end of the eighteenthcentury. The condition for this ongoing debate accordingto Lefort is in hisphrase "the dissolution of the markers of certainty" (p. 19), the recognitionof a "fundamental indeterminacy as to the basis of power, law, andknowledge" (p. 19).

There are some crucial questions I would like to raise concerning Lefort'sview. What exactly is the force of this "uncertainty" or "indeterminacy"which he alleges to be at the root of democracy? If it means nomore than lackof dogmatism and tolerance for alternative views, a fallibilistic attitude whichadmits the possibility of being wrong in one's cherished views, then there isnothing very striking or interesting in Lefort's claim. This is simply liberalopen-mindedness and one could wholeheartedly agree without difficulty. Ifthe dissolution of the markers of certainty means no more than that the oldsources of authority, t ruth, and power - for example, God, the church, theprince, the party no longer command epistemic or political obedience - that istrue but it is hardly a new observation.Obviously, Lefort means something more. He must mean that we cannotknow what is right or what is true or what is just, and that any claim to suchknowledge is suspect and incipiently totalitarian in its import. On this side of


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Praxis International 343the Atlantic too, the preoccupation with postmodernism and the loss of theold privileged access to truth is a familiar theme (all too familiar), but I don'tthink Lefort is simply an epistemological sceptic. Rather, his claim, likeMerleau-Ponty's, is for the indeterminate nature and the ambiguity of ourknowledge. But it seems tome unclear why this should support democracy. Itcould just as well support something else. For example, one way of puttinglegitimacy in question is simply to opt out of the political altogether, towithdraw in the face of uncertainty and cultivate one's garden, leaving thepublic space to the public-minded. Another alternative response touncertainty is more dire, but not unknown. Out of a certain kind ofhistoricism and relativism, with an emphasis on history and contingency anda critique of certainty, there arose the view that what was required was aresoluteness of the will. I am obviously suggesting the direction thatHeidegger took, where listening to the call of being and openness led tosupport for the unification of the will of the people and its embodiment in aleader, namely, full-blown totalitarianism. Clearly, this is just the oppositedirection from that which Lefort sees as following from the condition ofuncertainty and I surely am not accusing Lefort of following Heidegger'sdirection here. Rather my question is whether the uncertainty has any moreof a relation to democracy than it has to this quite opposite mode. Thus theredoesn't seem to be any compelling reason to think that the dissolution of themarkers of certainty would lead to debate or to a public space or todemocracy.Lefort is very explicit in rejecting on the one handwhat he calls naturalism,that is, a view of some basic human nature as the ground of rights and thebasis of democracy, e.g. that human beings are by nature free and equal andhave inalienable rights; and on the other hand historicism, namely, the viewthat different political forms have their equal validity as historicalphenomena and that political values are historically relative. His stanceagainst naturalism is quite clear but it is not obvious how he can avoidhistoricism. This is not to say that he thinks that alternative political forms areequally valid in their respective historical contexts. He is obviously fordemocracy and not for totalitarianism, and presumably not simply becausehe lives in a liberal, democratic society. But the question is on what groundshe can favor democracy, given that he has rejected the traditional grounds.Sometimes he sounds outrightly historicist as if he is simply reporting on thenew public space and its features, as a historical phenomenon, or as theappropriate one of its time. But there seems to be no normative argumentother than a clear preference for democracy and for the human rights whichhappen to have been established, whether in the originary act of constitutingthe new symbolic order or in the achievements of later democratic practice.Further, as I suggested earlier, the systemic uncertainty which is thecondition for the democratic debate leaves it open as to what values andwhatrights will happen to be legitimated or delegitimated, as majorities shifthistorically. But since all of these views are no more and no less intrinsicallylegitimate than the others that vie with them, why isn't this as classic a case ofhistoricism as one may wish?


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344 Praxis InternationalLefort's answer seems to be that there is a will to truth, "the experience of a'primal ability' to discriminate between truth and falsity, the just and theunjust, good and evil ... a need to judge and be judged, an experience thatattests to a universal intention" (pp. 5-6). Granting such a universal intention

without accusing Lefort of being naturalist or transcendental about it, there isno way of determiningwhere this intention will lead us, given the condition ofuncertainty, since the specific decisions or choices under uncertainty, forexample, concerning the existence of rights, may not only be various butcontradictory as well. It is true that, on Lefort's view, this universal intentionin the face of uncertainty serves as a motive to preserve the public spaceagainst its debasement, since it presumably may always give rise to aquestioning of any established opinion. But there are two issues that come upthen. The first is why people should enter into the public space of democraticdebate at all unless there is a common interest that it serves. But of course, ifthere is, then this already mediates the categorical division and conflict thatLefort takes to be definitive of democracy and would suggest a differentconception than the one he presents. Second, and most crucial, how can adebate defined only in terms of an abstract principle of difference supportand protect human rights? Why wouldn't it be possible to democraticallydeny that there are rights that an individual or a group of individuals has,since on this view the very fact of having these rights has no other ground thanthe decision to acknowledge them. And in fact Lefort seems to accept this.Therewould therefore seem to be no normative ground on which to object tothe violation of rights, though there remains the presupposition that such anobjection may be forthcoming in the debate, simply on the grounds that forany position taken it is possible to argue an opposing position. This isindeed a thin reed on which to rest the support of basic human rights, sincesuch rights would be subject to the political fashions of the moment. Lefortdoes not want to acknowledge this kind of relativism of rights; yet at thesame time he does not want to accord a natural status to these rightseither.It seems to me that we can avoid the polarity without the ahistoricalessentialism of a natural rights view, but yet with a stronger support for rightsthan the ultimately historicist view that Lefort appears to end up with. Myown view is that rights are grounded in the recognition of the fact of humanfreedom as the basic character of human being. Very briefly, I have arguedthat agency or the capacity for free choice is what marks human beings ashuman and that the exercise of this agency is a process of self-developmentthrough social interaction, and requires freedom from constraint and accessto objective conditions, both material and social. Further, I have proposedthat individuals have prima facie equally valid claims, that is to say, equalrights to the conditions of self-development. Thus human rights areunderstood as necessary conditions for freedom conceived as self-development. I have suggested that an approach in terms ofwhat I have called socialontology is needed in order to provide a non-relativistic argument for humanrights, and yet one which is not essentialist, since it does not posit any fixedconception of human nature or any fixed mode of self-development other


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Praxis International 345than what is chosen by the agents themselves under the constraint of theequal positive freedom of all other agents.My argument for democracy likewise is that it is a fundamental socialcondition for freedom understood as self-development; more specifically,that participation in decision making about the common activities in whichone engages, whether political, economic, or social, is required as such acondition. Rather than a value in itself or ungrounded as simply a politicalhistorical fact, the value of democracy thus derives from that of freedom asthe fundamental value. While I agree with Lefort about the importance ofdemocracy, for him it seems based on the uncertainty which therefore deniespower to any authority, whereas on my view it is based on the requirementsof freedom. The common interest that such freedom generates is an interestin providing, among other things, the political structures thatwill support therights that individuals require for the exercise of their agency, in bothindividual and common activity. The centrality of the freedom of individualsin this view provides a normative basis for assuring their human rights againstmajorities in a constitutional framework within which decision making bymajorities can rightfully proceed. It seems to me that Lefort's account doesnot offer such normative support for the rights that both of us agree need tobe protected.

NOTES1. Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 1988), first published as Essais sur le politique (xixe-xxe siecles) (Paris: Seuil, 1986).Quotations from this work in the text will be indicated by reference to page numbers inparentheses at the end of the quotation.2. Carol C. Gould, Rethinking Democracy: Freedom and Social Cooperation in Politics,Economy, andSociety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), see especially chapter

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4.5 - Gould, Carol C. - Claude Lefort on Modern Democracy (en)

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