NDEILENGAR JEAN TOG HADOUMADJI

By democracy, Rousseau understands first of all, at least within the framework of the Social Contract, only one of the possible forms that the Government, the executive power, can assume. When the people, the custodian of sovereignty, entrust the executive power, the power to enforce the laws, to more than half of the people or to the entire people, we are in the presence of a democratic government. Rousseau does not exclude, in other words, the hypothesis of a people among whom the differences between those who govern and those who are governed would paradoxically disappear; a people composed at the same time of citizens and magistrates; a people where everyone would be the authors of the laws and responsible for executing them. But Rousseau does not fail to express his reservations about such a state of affairs: “it is not good that those who make the laws execute them” (OC III, 404). According to Rousseau, the general will is the expression of the sovereignty of the people, and represents the collective interest of society as a whole, as opposed to the particular interests of each individual. For Rousseau, the will of the majority is a danger that can lead to the oppression