Marcel Gauchet and the crisis of European democracy

Abstract

Some of the most seminal reflections on the problematic of modern democracy have been developed by French authors over the last three decades with some achieving recognition in English language debates. Their reflections have, however, been discussed through a specific prism that does not acknowledge their debt to a radical tradition represented by Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort, which reactivated an underdeveloped theme in classical French sociology, that of social institution. Nobody has contributed more to this innovative line of thought than Marcel Gauchet. Yet he remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking world. The chapter presents his analysis of the contemporary crisis of European liberal democracy, an unprecedented form of autonomous society and of the prospects of its cultural revival. To do, it starts by examining his theory of modernity as new mode of power and specific interpretation of European history.