Deepening Democracy Through Contestation? Lefort and Gauchet on May 1968 and its Legacy

Which forms of contestation are beneficial for democracies, and which are not? This essay responds to this question by looking at writings on political contestation during 1968 by the French political theorist Claude Lefort. Although Lefort is now seen as a major theorist of democracy, I show that in 1968 he made almost no reference to democracy. Only from the 1970s onwards did he develop an elaborate theory of democracy that allowed him to better explain the role democracy and its symbolic principles could play in fostering contestation and also changed what he saw as proper forms of contestation. While in 1968 he had been enthusiastic about selfmanagement and was critical of traditional structures, in the 1970s almost the reverse was true. This essay ends with a brief comparison with Gauchet, which shows that Lefort, unlike Gauchet, continued to believe that democracies need contestation to flourish. In spite of all the changes in his theory post-1968, Lefort thus held on to 1968's spirit of contestation.