Democracy between the people and civil society
Democracy between the people and civil society

Summary/Abstract: The expert critique of populism is gradually de-legitimizing every reference to ‘the people’ in contemporary political discourses. Instead, civil society is coming to the front as a subject of legitimate democratic political action. But isn’t there a danger that civil society may unconditionally replace the people as a basis for democratic politics (as the etymology of the word ‘democracy’ indicates) and covertly reshape the possibilities for political disagreement on the order of power according to a liberal vision of civil society that has been in a position of hegemony since the 1990s? This text is an attempt to explore the history of the tense and complicated relationship between ‘the people’ and ‘civil society’ understood as principles which structure particular practices of governance and resistance in modern democratic politics. Two historical cases of conflict between those two principles are reviewed in brief: in post-revolutionary France and in contemporary counter-populist expert critique. Finally, an attempt is made to demonstrate a reasoned positive conceptualization of ‘the people’ in the philosophy of Jacques Rancière.

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