Gefährliche Freiheit

This study examines the relationship between Rousseau’s political thinking and the radical democracy connected with Claude Lefort. Using the history of ideas, it systematically reinterprets the common perception of this relationship as being irreconcilable in order to integrate Rousseau’s work into the context of radical democracy. It reconstructs the hegemonies of interpretation and discursive resistance which have been responsible for radical democracy remaining silent on Rousseau’s significance in order to fill this gap in research and to stimulate new ideas and further thinking on radical democracy. By doing so, this book does not present Rousseau as merely a forerunner of contemporary radical democratic thinking, but recognises his philosophy and criticism of culture as interventions that are genuinely related to radical democracy. It therefore refutes the common perception of Rousseau as a liberal or proto-totalitarian thinker.