Claude Lefort: Democracy and the fight for rights

Having as the central theme the debate about the notion of human and citizen righ s and the effectiveness of these in relation to the political struggle for new rights, this article investigates the innovative character of modern democracy. In his approach to the subject, C. Lefort argues three theses: the idea that the defense of universal human rights represents a danger to vigorous politics in benevolent States; the thesis which says that these rights would be the most complete expression of the ideology of bourgeois individualism and correspond to empty- formalities whose meaning would be simply to hide social violence and enshrine privileges; and, finally, die argument that democratic institutions would aim to only reproduce the property relations and forces existing in capitalism and not allow the expression of social contradictions or their resolution in the field of politics. The article reviews the political philosophy proposed by Lefort, which emphasizes the unprecedented nature of representative democracy, and then explains the historical perspective of struggle for rights opened by the democratic invention.