Abstract

Based more specifically on Le commun de la liberté (2022), this article examines the notion of the common as it appears in Catherine Colliot-Thélène’s thought, and aims to test the conception of politics that it outlines. The first part of the article examines the reasons, issues and contours of Colliot-Thélène’s “politics of rights”, before highlighting its merits, focusing in particular on the conception of social rights and migrants’ rights that it implies. After this first part, which seeks to reconstruct the argument of Le commun de la liberté by following its argumentation, the second part seeks to identify what is both problematic and fruitful about this “politics of rights”: while thinking about the political common without self-legislation seems perilous, the risks of heteronomy that Colliot-Thélène’s approach seeks to avert call for us to question what democratic domination – government – can be.