
Democracy and Political Theory
Claude Lefort(Author)
Polity Press
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 22. September 1988
Book
Hardback
100 pages
978-0-7456-0437-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book examines the central questions of democracy and politics in modern societies. Through an analysis of some of the key texts of 19th and 20th century thought - from Marx, Michelet and de Tocqueville to Hannah Arendt - the author explores the ambiguities of democracy, the nature of human rights, the idea and the reality of revolution, the emergence of totalitarianism and the changing relations between politics, religion and the image of the body. While developing a highly original account of the nature of politics and power in modern societies, he links political reflection to the interpretation of history as an open, indeterminate process of which we are part. This work should interest specialists in social and political theory and philosophers.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
628 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7456-0437-4 (9780745604374)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Claude Lefort was a French philosopher and activist. He was politically active by 1942 under the influence of his tutor, the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. By 1943 he was organising a faction of the Trotskyist Parti Communiste Internationaliste at the Lycee Henri-IV in Paris. David Macey was an English translator and intellectual historian of the French left. He translated around sixty books from French to English, and wrote biographical studies of Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Frantz Fanon.
Content
1. On Modern Democracy The Question of Democracy
Human Rights and the Welfare State
Hannah Arendt and the Question of the Political
2. On Revolution.
The Revolutionary Terror
Interpreting Revolution with the French Revolution
Edgar Quinet: The Revolution that Failed
The Revolution as Principle and as Individual
Rereading The Communist Manifesto
3. On freedom
Reversibility: Political Freedom and the Freedom of the Individual
From Equality to Freedom: Fragments of an Interpretation of Democracy in America
4. On the Irreducible Element.
The Permanence of the Theologico-political?
The death of immortality?
Human Rights and the Welfare State
Hannah Arendt and the Question of the Political
2. On Revolution.
The Revolutionary Terror
Interpreting Revolution with the French Revolution
Edgar Quinet: The Revolution that Failed
The Revolution as Principle and as Individual
Rereading The Communist Manifesto
3. On freedom
Reversibility: Political Freedom and the Freedom of the Individual
From Equality to Freedom: Fragments of an Interpretation of Democracy in America
4. On the Irreducible Element.
The Permanence of the Theologico-political?
The death of immortality?