Democracy and Freedom

This paper examines the relationship between democracy and the modern principle of emancipation. While thinkers like Claude Lefort view democracy as an open, unfinished project fostering the emancipation of new groups, others argue that democracy’s full realization requires an emancipated electorate. Without denying emancipation’s role in the rise of modern democracy, I argue that it as a political principle overlooks key issues. Emancipation primarily focuses on liberating individuals from perceived constraints – whether it be unfair competition, free movement of capital, or structural inequalities. By its nature, it is a negating force, emphasizing limitations rather than affirmatively proposing desirable alternatives. This negating character, evident in both left- and right-wing political discourses, is crucial to understanding the failures of the brief “end of history” phase of liberal democracy. To revitalize liberal democracies and address the challenges of the 21st century – particularly the populist challenge – it is necessary to reconsider emancipation and balance it with what Hannah Arendt describes as the “practice of freedom.” Arendt famously criticized modern politics for being instrumentalized to achieve external ends, such as individual emancipation or economic growth. To her, both are examples of what she (in)famously referred to as “the social.” She argued that this instrumentalization undermines the fundamental purpose of politics: to sustain a shared world – both physical and discursive – that connects individuals across time and space and provides opportunities to realize the human potential for freedom. Despite Arendt’s evident shortcomings as political thinker – her idealization of Ancient Athens and Rome, her at times unconvincing distinction between the political and the social, and her more or less wholesale dismissal of modern representative democracy – her framework effectively highlights the problems of viewing politics through the lens of emancipation rather than as a practice of freedom. Aspects of her analytical framework point to an institution-centered conceptualization of democratic politics. To illustrate the benefits of this approach, I delve into what an institution-centered view of democratic politics entails, focusing on one of Lefort’s foremost intellectual successors, the social theorist Marcel Gauchet. Gauchet’s analysis of the current crisis in liberal democracies highlights the necessity of countering the emphasis on emancipation through individual rights. Instead, he advocates for a renewed focus on affirmative ideals, particularly in key institutions like the educational system. His work also complements the Lefort-inspired “representative turn” in democratic theory by offering practical insights. Specifically, I argue that Gauchet’s view of democracy as rooted in shared institutions and collective action – rather than a uncompromising pursuit of individual liberation – clarifies the practical challenges of implementing insights from the representative turn. While scholars like Nadia Urbinati and Lisa Disch rightly stress the significance of mediating institutions for sustaining and revitalizing liberal democracies, Gauchet’s work addresses the practical difficulties of reconciling, in Constant’s terms, the freedom of the ancients with that of the moderns.