Claude Nicolas Leroy Lefort

1. Introduction

Claude Nicolas Leroy Lefort (1924–2010) was a French political thinker whose work reoriented late‑20th‑century reflections on democracy, totalitarianism, and the nature of the political. Writing at the intersection of history, philosophy, and social theory, he is widely associated with the thesis that modern democracy is characterized by an “empty place of power”—a position of authority that no individual, party, or social group can legitimately claim to embody once and for all.

Lefort’s analyses emerged from early engagements with Marxism, phenomenology, and anti‑Stalinist socialism, and later from sustained readings of Machiavelli, the French Revolution, and the experience of Soviet totalitarianism. Rather than constructing a closed philosophical system, he developed a series of conceptually connected essays on topics such as the political, social imaginaries, human rights, and bureaucratic domination.

In the broader landscape of contemporary thought, Lefort is often grouped with currents such as post‑Marxism, democratic theory, and the “French debate” on totalitarianism. Proponents regard his work as a crucial alternative to both Cold War liberalism and orthodox Marxism, emphasizing his insistence on conflict, plurality, and symbolic forms. Critics sometimes question the generality of his concept of totalitarianism or the normative implications of his understanding of democracy.

This entry examines Lefort’s life and historical context, the phases of his intellectual development, his most important works, and his principal concepts—especially democracy, totalitarianism, and the political—before considering his impact on later political philosophy and his broader historical significance.

2. Life and Historical Context

Born in Paris on 21 April 1924, Claude Lefort grew up in a milieu marked by interwar political tensions and the legacy of the French Third Republic. His formative years coincided with the rise of fascism and the trauma of World War II, experiences that later informed his sustained interest in totalitarian regimes and the fragility of democratic institutions.

After the war, Lefort studied philosophy, notably under Maurice Merleau‑Ponty, and became involved in Trotskyist and Marxist circles. The early Cold War context—particularly the consolidation of Soviet power in Eastern Europe and debates over Stalinism in French intellectual life—shaped his decisive turn toward anti‑bureaucratic and anti‑authoritarian socialism.

A key moment was the founding in 1947 of the group and review Socialisme ou Barbarie, together with Cornelius Castoriadis. This initiative unfolded against the backdrop of post‑war reconstruction, decolonization, and the disillusionment of many Western leftists with the Soviet model. Lefort’s subsequent break with the group in 1953 reflected broader fractures within the European left concerning vanguard parties, workers’ autonomy, and socialist democracy.

Lefort pursued an academic career primarily in France, teaching in secondary schools and later at institutions such as the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). The events of May 1968 provided a further context for his reflections on political conflict and social movements, even though he did not adopt the more revolutionary rhetoric of some contemporaries.

His mature writings of the 1970s and 1980s responded directly to the persistence of dictatorships (notably in Eastern Europe and Latin America), the publicization of the Soviet Gulag, and renewed French debates about human rights and the legacy of the French Revolution. These contexts framed his analyses of democracy as open and conflictual, and of totalitarianism as a distinctive modern regime form.

3. Intellectual Development and Major Influences

Lefort’s intellectual trajectory is often described in phases, each marked by distinctive influences and reorientations.

Early Marxism and Phenomenology

In the 1940s, Lefort combined Marxism with phenomenology, particularly through his studies with Merleau‑Ponty. He adopted Marxist themes of class struggle and alienation while drawing on phenomenology to analyze lived experience and perception. Proponents of this reading emphasize that Lefort’s lifelong interest in workers’ experience and institutional domination stems from this synthesis.

Anti‑Stalinism and Break with Vanguardism

Within Socialisme ou Barbarie, Lefort engaged with council communism and worker self‑management, influenced by heterodox Marxists and critical readings of Soviet society. The discovery of bureaucratic domination as a central problem led him to question the idea of a revolutionary party with privileged knowledge. His 1953 break with the group is interpreted by many scholars as a decisive move away from vanguardism toward a focus on autonomy and plurality.

Machiavelli and the Discovery of “the Political”

From the late 1960s, Lefort’s intensive study of Niccolò Machiavelli reshaped his thought. He read Machiavelli as a theorist of division and conflict rather than of unified sovereignty, which helped him articulate the notion of the political as the symbolic institution of society. Renaissance republicanism, historians of political thought argue, served as a laboratory for his ideas about social division, founding acts, and the visibility of power.

Engagements with Contemporary Thought

Lefort also dialogued with Hannah Arendt (on totalitarianism and revolution), Alexandre Solzhenitsyn (on the Gulag), and other French thinkers like Castoriadis and Marcel Gauchet. Some commentators see affinities with structuralism and post‑structuralism in his attention to symbolic forms and discourses, though he remained wary of any theory claiming to fully decode society. These influences converged in his mature analyses of democracy, human rights, and the social imaginary.

4. Key Works and Central Themes

Lefort’s major works are mostly collections of essays written over several decades, rather than systematic treatises. Nonetheless, several volumes have become central reference points.

Major Works and Focal Themes

Across these works, several recurring themes can be identified:

• The distinction between democracy and totalitarianism as opposed regime forms, not merely degrees of pluralism.
• The concept of the political as an underlying symbolic dimension distinct from day‑to‑day politics.
• The role of social imaginaries in shaping institutions, law, and collective identities.
• A non‑foundational understanding of human rights as internal to democratic forms of life rather than as external moral constraints.

Scholars sometimes debate whether these themes form a coherent system or a looser constellation. Supporters of the systematic view highlight the continuity from Machiavelli studies to the analyses of democracy; others stress the essayistic, exploratory character of Lefort’s writings and his resistance to doctrinal closure.

5. Democracy, the Empty Place of Power, and Human Rights

Lefort’s most cited contribution to democratic theory is his description of democracy as an “empty place of power”. In this view, modern democracy is defined by a structural separation between power and any substantive social body.

Democracy as an Empty Place of Power

According to Lefort, in democratic regimes:

• Power is symbolically unoccupied; rulers are temporary occupants whose legitimacy is continually contested.
• No party, class, or leader can claim to embody “the people” in a definitive way.
• Public space is marked by indeterminacy and conflict, with institutionalized procedures (elections, rights, debate) that allow this conflict to be expressed.

He contrasts this with pre‑modern and authoritarian regimes in which power is typically grounded in divine right, natural order, or historical destiny. Proponents of Lefort’s reading argue that this formulation captures the specificity of modern pluralist democracies and helps explain their openness to social change.

Human Rights and Democratic Society

Lefort links human rights to this democratic structure of indeterminacy. He maintains that rights are not merely legal limits imposed on power from outside, but expressions of a democratic social imaginary that recognizes society as divided and individuals as irreducible.

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“Human rights do not designate an external limit imposed on power; they belong to the very institution of a society that recognizes itself as divided and open.”

— Claude Lefort, Essais sur le politique

Some theorists see in this approach a bridge between liberal rights discourse and a more historical, sociological account of democracy. Critics, however, question whether Lefort sufficiently specifies which rights follow from this imaginary or how conflicts between rights should be resolved.

Comparison with Other Views of Democracy

Lefort’s account thus places symbolic structures and imaginaries at the center of democratic life, emphasizing openness over predetermined ends.

6. Totalitarianism and the Embodied Social Body

Lefort’s analysis of totalitarianism is a central counterpart to his theory of democracy. He defines totalitarianism not simply as extreme authoritarianism but as a regime that seeks to embody the social body in a unified, homogeneous form.

Abolition of the Separation between State and Society

For Lefort, totalitarian regimes attempt to erase institutional boundaries between state and society, public and private. The party‑state claims to represent society in its entirety, leaving no legitimate social spaces outside its purview. This results in what he calls the abolition of social division at the symbolic level, even if material inequalities persist.

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“Totalitarianism is distinguished by the abolition of the separation between the state and society, by the attempt to incarnate society in a single body whose head is the leader.”

— Claude Lefort, Essais sur le politique

Embodied Social Body and the “Superfluous Man”

Lefort analyzes Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as paradigmatic cases in which power seeks to incarnate “the people” in a leader, party, or ideological figure. Those who do not fit this representation—ethnic, political, or social outsiders—are cast as foreign bodies within the social organism and may become “superfluous,” as explored in his reading of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag narrative.

This focus on embodiment leads him to stress practices such as purges, show trials, and concentration camps as symbolic as well as instrumental: they dramatize the regime’s claim to purify and unify the social body.

Distinctiveness of Lefort’s Theory

Comparative table:

Supporters consider this perspective helpful for understanding how totalitarian regimes seek legitimacy through claims of unity and transparency. Some critics argue that the concept may blur differences between distinct authoritarian systems or underplay the role of economic and military factors.

7. The Political, Symbolic Forms, and the Social Imaginary

Lefort distinguishes “the political” (le politique) from empirical politics (la politique) to highlight a deeper, symbolic dimension through which societies institute themselves.

The Political as Symbolic Institution

For Lefort, every society requires a set of symbolic forms through which it represents:

• Its unity (who “we” are),
• Its divisions (classes, orders, parties, estates),
• Its relation to law, power, and the outside world.

This symbolic ordering—the political—precedes and shapes concrete political struggles, institutions, and policies. It is not reducible to economic structures or legal norms, though it interacts with them. Proponents argue that this concept allows for comparison of different regimes in terms of how they stage the relationship between rulers and ruled, visibility and invisibility, inclusion and exclusion.

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“There is no society without a representation of itself, without a mode of figuratively staging its unity, its divisions, and its relation to the other.”

— Claude Lefort, Essais sur le politique

Social Imaginary

The notion of social imaginary (imaginaire social) refers to the ensemble of images, narratives, and representations that give meaning to a society’s institutions. It is closely linked to, but not identical with, the political: the imaginary encompasses broader cultural symbols (religious myths, national histories, revolution narratives) that may sustain or destabilize political forms.

Some scholars stress affinities between Lefort’s social imaginary and related concepts in Castoriadis or Charles Taylor. Others note differences: Lefort tends to emphasize division and contingency, whereas other theorists may highlight creativity or shared horizons of meaning.

Regime Types and Symbolic Forms

Debates surround whether this typology captures all relevant political forms and how it applies to hybrid or contemporary populist regimes, but it remains central to interpretations of Lefort’s work.

8. Methodology: Historiography, Interpretation, and Critique

Lefort’s methodology combines historical inquiry, close textual interpretation, and conceptual analysis rather than adhering to a single disciplinary model.

Historiographical Approach

Trained as a historian, Lefort treats events such as the French Revolution, the rise of totalitarian regimes, and workers’ movements as sites where the political institution of society becomes visible. He resists purely structural or teleological explanations, instead emphasizing contingency, conflict, and the open‑ended character of historical processes.

His reading of Machiavelli exemplifies this approach: rather than reconstructing Machiavelli’s thought as a timeless doctrine, he examines how the texts themselves participate in the founding of a new political space.

Hermeneutics and Textual Interpretation

Lefort’s interpretive practice is often described as hermeneutic. He:

• Engages closely with textual details, rhetorical strategies, and narrative structures.
• Treats canonical works (Machiavelli, Solzhenitsyn, revolutionary debates) as symptomatic of broader social imaginaries.
• Avoids definitive exegesis, instead exploring multiple possible readings.

Supporters argue that this allows him to reveal hidden dimensions of political experience. Critics sometimes find his interpretations too allusive or insufficiently grounded in philological or archival evidence.

Critical Theory without System

Lefort articulates a form of critique that does not rest on a comprehensive theory of society or history. Instead, he seeks to expose the claims to closure and embodiment made by certain regimes and theories. His criticism targets:

• Ideologies that present society as fully knowable and representable by a single subject.
• Theoretical systems (including some Marxist or structuralist ones) that aim at exhaustive explanation.

This stance has been interpreted as a form of post‑foundational critical theory. Some commentators, however, question whether Lefort’s reliance on democracy as an open form does not itself function as a kind of normative foundation, even if he denies offering a prescriptive program.

9. Impact on Political Philosophy and Democratic Theory

Lefort’s work has exerted significant influence on contemporary political philosophy, particularly in debates on democracy, totalitarianism, and the nature of the political.

Influence on Democratic and Post‑Marxist Theory

In France and beyond, Lefort became a reference for thinkers grappling with the crisis of classical Marxism and the reassessment of revolutionary politics. His conception of democracy as institutionalized indeterminacy informed strands of post‑Marxist and agonistic democratic theory. Scholars often trace lines of affinity or dialogue between Lefort and figures such as:

• Cornelius Castoriadis, on the social imaginary and autonomy;
• Chantal Mouffe, on conflict and the impossibility of final reconciliation;
• Étienne Balibar and Miguel Abensour, on citizenship, rights, and democracy without guarantees.

Some theorists praise Lefort for providing an alternative to both liberal minimalism and revolutionary teleology. Others note tensions between his emphasis on openness and the need for stable institutions and substantive justice.

Debates on Totalitarianism and Human Rights

Lefort’s analyses contributed to the so‑called “French debate on totalitarianism” in the 1970s and 1980s, alongside authors such as Hannah Arendt (whom he engaged) and French commentators on the Gulag. His focus on symbolic embodiment influenced subsequent studies of authoritarian and post‑totalitarian regimes.

In the field of human rights, legal and political theorists have drawn on his claim that rights are internal to democratic forms of society. This has informed discussions on constitutionalism, transitional justice, and post‑authoritarian orders, particularly in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Critics sometimes argue that his approach offers limited guidance on concrete institutional design or policy choices.

Reception and Critique

While his influence is most pronounced in European contexts, translations and comparative studies have extended his reach, making his concepts part of broader conversations on democracy, populism, and authoritarianism.

10. Legacy and Historical Significance

Lefort’s legacy is primarily associated with his reconceptualization of democracy and his insistence on the symbolic dimension of political life.

Reframing Democracy and Totalitarianism

Historically, Lefort is seen as part of a generation of post‑war European thinkers who sought to understand both the catastrophes of totalitarianism and the possibilities of modern democracy. His distinction between:

• Democracy as an empty place of power, and
• Totalitarianism as an embodied social body

has become a standard reference in typologies of modern regimes. Historians of ideas credit him with helping to move debates beyond Cold War binaries of East versus West, emphasizing instead the internal symbolic structures of political orders.

Contribution to the Concept of “the Political”

Lefort’s notion of the political influenced subsequent explorations of how societies imagine and institute themselves. This contribution situates him alongside other major theorists of the political—Arendt, Schmitt, Castoriadis—while marking a distinctive emphasis on division and indeterminacy. His work thus occupies a significant place in the history of political thought as part of a broader shift toward examining foundational imaginaries rather than only institutions or policies.

Ongoing Relevance

In contemporary debates, Lefort is invoked in discussions of:

• Populism, where claims to embody “the real people” raise questions about the closure of the empty place of power;
• Post‑authoritarian transitions, where constitutional orders and rights regimes are seen as constructing new democratic imaginaries;
• Global human rights discourse, in which his view of rights as expressions of democratic division offers an alternative to purely moral or legalist accounts.

Assessments of his historical significance diverge. Some commentators portray him as a key architect of a “democratic turn” in French thought; others see his impact as more specialized, limited to academic discussions of regime theory and symbolic forms. Nonetheless, his concepts continue to be mobilized in analyses of 21st‑century political developments, suggesting a legacy that extends beyond his immediate post‑war and late‑Cold‑War context.