Abstract
This essay sets up a dialogue between Lefort’s view on the relationship between
the state and modern society and Foucault’s thesis of a governmental turn in the
modern power regime, whereby the relations between state and society are thoroughly
redrawn. What are the main results? 1) Whereas Lefort’s political ontology
leaves room for divergent agencies from which the symbolic institution of the social
may unfold, his preoccupation with democracy leans him to inseparably link the
symbolic institution of modern society with the functioning of the modern state.
2) By contrast, Foucault’s history of governmentality documents a shift from the
political and legal power regime to the biopolitical regime. This shift seems to be
accompanied by a turn in the regime of the symbolic institution of modern society.
Where that institution hitherto relied on the state, today, a symbiosis of state and
neoliberal governmentality seems to be taking over. 3) This shift in power regimes
brings along major problems. In political respect, it leads to a re-adjustment
of the instituting representations of contemporary society, to a depoliticization of
political and social relations, and to the erosion of democracy.