Tensions between democracy and capitalism in the perspective of Claude Lefort

• Grant number: 18/05004-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: June 01, 2018
• End date: May 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marilena de Souza Chauí
• Grantee: Martha Gabrielly Coletto Costa
• Supervisor: Gilles Rene Didier Bataillon
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/24050-2 - Claude Lefort and the democratic enigma: strengths and limits of a modern political invention, BP.DR

Abstract

We aim to understand Claude Lefort's vision of the relations between democracy and capitalism in his later writings, published in the years 1990-2000, in order to situate his position in the current debate on the threats to contemporary democratic life. Given that the Lefortian conception of democracy was elaborated in the 1970s from and against totalitarian experience and, at the same time, at the distance from the Marxist model of social criticism, we will seek to assess whether and how such a conception, taken in its original critical to face the transformations that have taken place since the end of the 20th century, especially the configuration of a new political and economic order elaborated by neoliberalism, which tends to inaugurate "a post-democratic system".