Background
Lefort, Claude was born on April 21, 1924 in Paris.
political philosopher Phenomen- °l°gist
Lefort, Claude was born on April 21, 1924 in Paris.
Lycée Carnot, Lycée Henri IV and the Sorbonne.
Professor, University of Sao Paulo, 953^4. Chargé de Recherches, CNRS, 1956-1966. Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Caen, 1966-1971.
Maître de Recherches, CNRS, '971^. Directeur d’Études, EHESS, 1976-1989. 'siting Professor in several universities.
Collaboration with Les ernPs Modernes. 1945-1954; Founder and coaniuiator of Socialisme ou Barbarie, 1948-1958. Of Textures, 1972-1975.
Of Libre. 1975-1979; Director of o«é-Présent, 1982-1985. Member of the editorial °ard of Le Temps de la réflexion.
The dominant theme in Lefort’s work is his extended analysis of the opposition of democracy and totalitarianism. He holds that a proper understanding of this situation presupposes the view that the political regime of a society is not simply a formal device designed to regulate people’s relationships: power cannot be reduced to a mere instrumental function. Rather, its role is an essentially symbolic one. It gives a society its particular identity, its style of relationships, its criteria of what can be thought, and so on. To understand a society, Lefort maintains, is to elucidate the set of principles embodied in its power structure. This conclusion leads Lefort to a comparative study of different forms of society with the aim, first, of discovering the principles that give each one its particular shape and dynamics and, second, of showing that democracy and totalitarianism are the two possible and opposite political outcomes of modernity, modernity being construed from a Tocquevillian perspective as the form of society whose dynamic is determined by the equality of conditions and the delegitimization of the hierarchical principle. The equalizing process, Lefort argues, leads democracy to accept that the place of power must be empty; whereas totalitarianism arises through a will to give power a definite figure which makes it possible to legitimize the systematic oppression of social deviation.