The symbolic space of democracy

Abstract

This essay proposes a radical review of the concept of democracy, drawing on contributions topolitical philosophy made by Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis and Hannah Arendt; with some elements of psychoanalytic theory as background. The relevance of distinguishing between the “real space” of democracy—spaces of bureaucracy, formality and administrative procedures— and the “symbolic space” as the critical and irreducible space of the “sovereignty of the people” is emphasized.