“At the source of democracy can be found the rejection of a number of things: power detached from the social ensemble, law that governs an immutable order, and a spiritual authority possessing knowledge of the ultimate ends of human conduct and of the community. However, it is not enough to say at the source of democracy: this rejection has been democracy’s permanent driving energy. A force of negativity inhabits it.”

Claude Lefort, 1999, Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy. New York, Columbia University Press