The Attack on Sovereignty: Liberalism and Democracy in Hayek, Foucault, and Lefort

• Author: Annabel Herzog
• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591720958124
• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591720958124

Political Theory

2021, Vol. 49(4) 662 –685

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591720958124

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Article

The Attack on

Sovereignty: Liberalism

and Democracy in Hayek,

Foucault, and Lefort

Annabel Herzog1

Abstract

This essay examines and challenges some of the theoretical arguments of

the neoliberal attack on the concept of popular sovereignty. I argue that

in order to resist both the neoliberal reaction against popular power and

the subsequent resurgence of populist rhetoric, we need to rework the

concept of popular sovereignty. I focus on three groups of texts written in

the early years of the neoliberal shift—namely, from the mid-1970s to early

1980s—which deal with the question of sovereignty: Hayek’s Law, Legislation

and Liberty; Foucault’s works of the late 1970s; and Lefort’s reflections on

the symbolic dimension of power. While Hayek and Foucault defend similar

views on sovereignty and argue that it is or should be replaced by technics of

management, Lefort proposes a de-essentialized conception of democracy

based on redefining sovereignty as the possibility of continually refiguring

the space of power.

Keywords

sovereignty, neoliberalism, Hayek, Foucault, Lefort, democracy

Introduction

The popular discontent that has been expressed of late in many countries, and

that has been exploited and exacerbated by populist leaders, tends to be

1University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Annabel Herzog, School of Political Science, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905,

Israel.

Email: aherzog@poli.haifa.ac.il

958124PTXXXX10.1177/0090591720958124Political TheoryHerzog

research-article2020

Herzog 663

explained in either cultural or economic terms. In the latter case, inquiries

emphasize the frustration and humiliation caused by the economic reforms of

the last fifty years, which have resulted in the shuttering of local businesses,

financial crises, etc. The present essay shares common ground with such

analyses, but rather than focusing on the economic effects of neoliberalism, I

concentrate on its political consequences. My assumption is that neoliberal-

ism has affected the framework of liberal democracies by weakening and

dislocating popular sovereignty or, more properly, its expression in participa-

tion and deliberation, thereby provoking anger and mistrust toward elites and

institutions. The purpose of this essay is not to describe these empirical pro-

cesses, which are taken as given, but to examine and challenge some of the

theoretical arguments for the neoliberal attack on the concept of popular sov-

ereignty. I argue that in light of this attack, and the consequent resurgence of

populist rhetoric, liberal democracies must rethink the meaning of popular

sovereignty.

Recent discussions of neoliberalism highlight the ways it differs from

classical liberalism as well as from libertarianism. These discussions show

that neoliberalism is not merely a theory of deregulation, free trade, and glo-

balization.1 Rather, it holds at its core a coherent understanding of the role of

the state with regard not only to markets but also to other aspects of collective

existence.2 Far from advocating a reduced role for political power, it reformu-

lates the functions of power, with the first of these functions being to allow

for the perpetual expansion of economic competition.3 As such, the goal of

the neoliberal state is to ensure that competition is enhanced at every level of

the market—an objective that requires intervention in all areas that make

economic processes possible.4 The fact that the neoliberal state is not itself an

economic player does not mean, therefore, that it is minimal or weak, or that

the economic and political spheres are disconnected.5 Rather, “all the while,

the state actually facilitates and makes possible the new order.”6 Moreover,

since “economic freedom and civil liberties [can] flourish in conditions in

which political freedom [is] absent,”7 neoliberalism accommodates different

modes of political interventions.8 As a result, it is not a kind of regime but a

“series of ideas about socio-economic order”9 that modify but also work in

tandem with different regimes.

The question that I raise in this context refers to how we imagine and con-

ceptualize democratic power. More precisely, what happens to the concept of

popular sovereignty in theories of neoliberal democracy? To address this

question, I turn to three groups of texts written in the first years of the neolib-

eral shift—namely, from the mid-1970s to early 1980s—that deal with the

question of sovereignty. The first group consists of Friedrich Hayek’s book

Law, Legislation and Liberty, originally published in three volumes between