Raf Geenens
Biographic Data
| ID | 1683719 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Raf Geenens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Raf |
| FAMILY NAME | Geenens |
| SIGNATURE | GEENENS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | KU Leuven |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1222-9139 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Identity and difference
This article offers a critical literature review on the debate on constitutional identity, combining a synthesis of existing literature with a critical reframing of the concept’s theoretical and methodological foundations. While constitutional identity has become increasingly prominent in legal and political debates – particularly within the European Union – its meanings and functions remain contested. The article develops a typology of approache…
Community and Choreography
The aim of this paper is to take a step backwards. The problem of community in contemporary dance cannot be accurately thought without first looking at dance’s constitutive outside, namely social dancing. This is where most dancing actually happens, but it falls outside the remit of contemporary dance as an artform. And it is a constitutive outside because dance as an artform historically emerged by separating itself off from social dancing, all …
Unity and Division. Lefort and Clastres on the Role of Power in the Constitution of Society
This article looks at the relation between the ideas of philosopher Claude Lefort and ethnologist Pierre Clastres. Both French authors worked in the same paradigm. They were convinced that politics is the "infrastructure" of society: all societies are politically constituted and can only be understood by interpreting the workings of political power. Yet they strongly disagreed on the dividedness of society. Clastres believed that a good solution …
Lottocracy Versus Democracy
This paper critically compares a deliberative system based on parliamentary elections (an electoral system) and a deliberative system based on sortition (a lottocratic system). Both systems are analyzed in three dimensions. The epistemic dimension concerns the rational quality of the democratic process. The power dimension concerns the distribution of power and the extent to which citizens genuinely control all decisions. The motivational dimensi…
A tripartite model of federalism
The classical account of federalism is bipartite. Federal systems are understood to have a dual nature: on the one hand, there is the central government, and on the other hand, there are the constituent units. We argue instead for a tripartite model of federalism. In this model, a third institutional pillar is added to federal systems. This third pillar deals exclusively with matters related to the institutional architecture of the system. We arg…
Sovereignty Civic Participation and Constitutional Law
The ‘Co‐Originality’ of Constituent Power and Representation
status: Published
French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day
There is an enduring assumption that the French have never been and will never be liberal. As with all clichés, this contains a grain of truth, but it also overlooks an important school of thought that has been a constant presence in French intellectual and political culture for nearly three centuries: French political liberalism. In this collaborative volume, a distinguished group of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians …
Modernity Gone Awry
This essay starts by reviewing Claude Lefort's writings on totalitarianism, a theme that runs like a red thread through his oeuvre and plays a key role in the different stages of his intellectual development. The analysis of the USSR is a central interest of Lefort and his colleagues at Socialisme ou Barbarie (and inspires them to adopt an explicitly "political" approach against the "economism" of their fellow Marxists); the problem of totalitari…
The Emergence of Supranational Politics
The field of supranational democracy, which this paper addresses, is usually characterized by grand institutional designs and utopian projects. My aim here is, however, admittedly modest. I would like to examine one specific strategy deployed by a number of political theorists writing in this field. These authors come from very different backgrounds—they range from Pierre Manent and John Pocock to Larry Siedentop and Jean Cohen—yet they all share…
Does Truth Matter?
La condition politique
Geenens Raf. La condition politique. Lefort, un penseur normatif. In: Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Troisième série, tome 107, n°1, 2009. pp. 101-125
Does Truth Matter?
Democracy, Human Rights and History
This article offers an overview of the French political philosopher Claude Lefort's oeuvre, arguing that his work should be read as a normative or even universalist justification of democracy and human rights. The notion of history plays a crucial notion in this enterprise, as Lefort demonstrates that there is an ineluctable 'historical' or 'political' condition of human coexistence, a condition that can only be properly accommodated in a regime …
‘When I Was Young and Politically Engaged…’
This article attempts to reconstruct a Lefortian account of the phenomenon of political commitment. In a democracy, the gap between the subject of commitment and its object, the domain of politics, is unavoidable. The result is an attitude towards political causes characterized by a two-way movement between an engaged perspective and a more distant, realist perspective. Although the contrast between these two perspectives is disenchanting, we, as…
Democracy, Human Rights and History
This article offers an overview of the French political philosopher Claude Lefort's oeuvre, arguing that his work should be read as a normative or even universalist justification of democracy and human rights. The notion of history plays a crucial notion in this enterprise, as Lefort demonstrates that there is an ineluctable 'historical' or 'political' condition of human coexistence, a condition that can only be properly accommodated in a regime …
Lottocracy Versus Democracy
This paper critically compares a deliberative system based on parliamentary elections (an electoral system) and a deliberative system based on sortition (a lottocratic system). Both systems are analyzed in three dimensions. The epistemic dimension concerns the rational quality of the democratic process. The power dimension concerns the distribution of power and the extent to which citizens genuinely control all decisions. The motivational dimensi…
The ‘Co‐Originality’ of Constituent Power and Representation
status: Published
A tripartite model of federalism
The classical account of federalism is bipartite. Federal systems are understood to have a dual nature: on the one hand, there is the central government, and on the other hand, there are the constituent units. We argue instead for a tripartite model of federalism. In this model, a third institutional pillar is added to federal systems. This third pillar deals exclusively with matters related to the institutional architecture of the system. We arg…
‘When I Was Young and Politically Engaged…’
This article attempts to reconstruct a Lefortian account of the phenomenon of political commitment. In a democracy, the gap between the subject of commitment and its object, the domain of politics, is unavoidable. The result is an attitude towards political causes characterized by a two-way movement between an engaged perspective and a more distant, realist perspective. Although the contrast between these two perspectives is disenchanting, we, as…
Does Truth Matter?
Democracy, Human Rights and History
This article offers an overview of the French political philosopher Claude Lefort's oeuvre, arguing that his work should be read as a normative or even universalist justification of democracy and human rights. The notion of history plays a crucial notion in this enterprise, as Lefort demonstrates that there is an ineluctable 'historical' or 'political' condition of human coexistence, a condition that can only be properly accommodated in a regime …
Does Truth Matter?
La condition politique
Geenens Raf. La condition politique. Lefort, un penseur normatif. In: Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Troisième série, tome 107, n°1, 2009. pp. 101-125
The Emergence of Supranational Politics
The field of supranational democracy, which this paper addresses, is usually characterized by grand institutional designs and utopian projects. My aim here is, however, admittedly modest. I would like to examine one specific strategy deployed by a number of political theorists writing in this field. These authors come from very different backgrounds—they range from Pierre Manent and John Pocock to Larry Siedentop and Jean Cohen—yet they all share…
French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day
There is an enduring assumption that the French have never been and will never be liberal. As with all clichés, this contains a grain of truth, but it also overlooks an important school of thought that has been a constant presence in French intellectual and political culture for nearly three centuries: French political liberalism. In this collaborative volume, a distinguished group of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians …
Modernity Gone Awry
This essay starts by reviewing Claude Lefort's writings on totalitarianism, a theme that runs like a red thread through his oeuvre and plays a key role in the different stages of his intellectual development. The analysis of the USSR is a central interest of Lefort and his colleagues at Socialisme ou Barbarie (and inspires them to adopt an explicitly "political" approach against the "economism" of their fellow Marxists); the problem of totalitari…
The ‘Co‐Originality’ of Constituent Power and Representation
status: Published
Sovereignty Civic Participation and Constitutional Law
Unity and Division. Lefort and Clastres on the Role of Power in the Constitution of Society
This article looks at the relation between the ideas of philosopher Claude Lefort and ethnologist Pierre Clastres. Both French authors worked in the same paradigm. They were convinced that politics is the "infrastructure" of society: all societies are politically constituted and can only be understood by interpreting the workings of political power. Yet they strongly disagreed on the dividedness of society. Clastres believed that a good solution …
Lottocracy Versus Democracy
This paper critically compares a deliberative system based on parliamentary elections (an electoral system) and a deliberative system based on sortition (a lottocratic system). Both systems are analyzed in three dimensions. The epistemic dimension concerns the rational quality of the democratic process. The power dimension concerns the distribution of power and the extent to which citizens genuinely control all decisions. The motivational dimensi…
A tripartite model of federalism
The classical account of federalism is bipartite. Federal systems are understood to have a dual nature: on the one hand, there is the central government, and on the other hand, there are the constituent units. We argue instead for a tripartite model of federalism. In this model, a third institutional pillar is added to federal systems. This third pillar deals exclusively with matters related to the institutional architecture of the system. We arg…
Community and Choreography
The aim of this paper is to take a step backwards. The problem of community in contemporary dance cannot be accurately thought without first looking at dance’s constitutive outside, namely social dancing. This is where most dancing actually happens, but it falls outside the remit of contemporary dance as an artform. And it is a constitutive outside because dance as an artform historically emerged by separating itself off from social dancing, all …
Identity and difference
This article offers a critical literature review on the debate on constitutional identity, combining a synthesis of existing literature with a critical reframing of the concept’s theoretical and methodological foundations. While constitutional identity has become increasingly prominent in legal and political debates – particularly within the European Union – its meanings and functions remain contested. The article develops a typology of approache…
Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Political Theory and Influence (7 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Philosophy, Sociology, Political Theory (5 works)