Abstract
This commentary aims to bring to the fore the revolutionary elements of the democratic politics inaugurated by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. This founding event places rights at that gap or hiatus between constituent and constituted power, and it reminds us that rights are not simply normative constraints on an existing political and legal order but also democratic inventions that can institute a new order. The commentary examines the works of two thinkers who offer crucial insights into the key features of this democratic politics of rights: Claude Lefort and Étienne Balibar.
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