Thinking about democracy today implies unraveling the solid link established in the nineteenth century between the concepts of democracy and sovereignty of the peoples. The continuous process of democratization of the State has been possible thanks to the individualization of the subject of law. This has become the figure of the modern political subject and, at the end of the history of Western political regimes of the last two centuries, the democratic citizen who mobilizes to defend his rights or to conquer others is his faithful interpretation.

Catherine Colliot-Thélène argues in this book that, in order to understand both what modern democracies are and what threatens them today, one must begin by leaving aside the etymology and conventional references to the canonical texts of ancient political philosophy. : we must give up linking the modern concept of democracy with the identification of a demos. In this way, subjective rights are taken as a starting point in this work for the reflection of one of the most essential dimensions of modern democracies: the sovereignty of the people.