Is there a democratic form of life?

Abstract

Chapter 4 addresses the question of whether the democratic principles of freedom, equality and community constitute a form of life of their own or rather function as the framework for the coexistence of diverse forms of life. While the first possibility is best illustrated by Alain Badiou’s politics of truth, which takes up and radicalizes the Rousseauan tradition, the latter option has been developed in Jean-Luc Nancy’s theory of democracy. Prozorov critically engages with both positions while ultimately opting for the third, inspired by Agamben’s notion of destituent power. Rather than single out any particular form of life as democratic, he argues that democracy may be affirmed from within any particular form of life, but only as long as this form is practiced in the manner that manifests its contingency.