From totalitarianism to populism

Claude Lefort’s overlooked legacy

Bibliographic Data

ID6444965
AuthorsWilliam Selinger (0000-0001-8840-9721, University of Oklahoma, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume51
Issue7
Pages1075-1096
Publication date2023-11-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy & Social Criticism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-4537 • E-ISSN: 1461-734X
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01914537231215725
OpenAlexW4388946106
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited33

This article recovers Claude Lefort’s engagement with the issue of populism, which was inspired by the emergence of Jean-Marie Le Pen as a major figure in French politics during the late 1980s. I show how Lefort developed both an analysis of populism as a pathology of modern politics and a new vision of representative democracy as the alternative to populism. In doing so, Lefort drew upon his more familiar theory of democracy and totalitarianism, his study of the history of French political thought, and his partnership with Pierre Ronsanvallon, who was also developing an analysis of populism in response to Le Pen. Lefort’s approach to populism has outlived the context in which he first expressed it. Over the last decade, a number of prominent political theorists have drawn on Lefortian themes to formulate their own accounts of populism and democracy. In many cases, their arguments are quite similar to those that Lefort was expressing in the late 1980s and 1990s. A particular version of Lefortianism, which was foreshadowed in the writings of Lefort himself, has become one of the defining democratic theories of our political moment

Context (archaeology · Democracy · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Populism · Sociology · History · Law · Marxism and Critical Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy, Sociology, Political Theory · Political Theory and Influence

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