Abstract
Let us leave behind the journalistic commonplace, the revolutions of 1989. The actors themselves, as we know, spoke of self-limiting, peaceful, velvet, and negotiated revolutions, terms all indicating distance from the revolutionary tradition they knew all too well. Even in South Africa in the 1990s, few spoke of revolution during what was indeed the radical transformation of the system of apartheid. The analysts, if they did not adopt the terms of the actors, spoke of regime change, democratic transition, or even revolution.
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Notes
See A. Arato and J. L. Cohen (2010) “Banishing the Sovereign?” in S. Benhabib (ed.) Politics in Dark Times, pp. 137–71.
C. Lefort (1988) “Revolution within the French Revolution” in Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) pp. 95, 105.
For Lefort’s view of non-totalitarian dictatorships see C. Lefort (2000) “Reflections on the Present” in Writing: The Political Test (Durham: Duke University Press) p. 260.
Cited by Lefort in C. Lefort (1988) “From Equality to Freedom. Fragments of an Interpretation of Democracy in America” in Democracy and Political Theory, p. 184.
C. Lefort (1976) “The Age of Novelty” Te los 24; in French (1981) “Une autre revolution” in L’invention democratique: les limites de la domination tolitaire (Paris: Fayard).
C. Lefort, “L’insurrection hongroise” 1957 in L’invention democratique.
C. Lefort, “La question de la revolution” 1976 in L’invention democratique, pp. 190–1.
A. Michnik (1985) Letters from Prison and Other Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 86.
C. Lefort (1988) “Interpreting the Revolution within the French Revolution” in Democracy and Political Theory, p. 107.
J. Kis (1995) “Beyond Reform and Revolution,” Constellations 1 no. 3.
C. Lefort (2000) “Reflections on the Present,” pp. 254 and 256.
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© 2013 Andrew Arato
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Arato, A. (2013). Lefort, the Philosopher of 1989. In: Plot, M. (eds) Claude Lefort. Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375581_9
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