This paper engages with radical democratic theory in light of the so-called ‘return of the people’ taking place in contemporary political discourse. I argue that the return of the people should not be seen only as a return of politics strictly speaking, but also as a process by which elements of the social that had previously been excluded from politics enter the political sphere. Framing the problem in this way calls for a view to how politics is circumscribed, distinguished from the social but also, at various moments, broken open. At the same time, I call for paying increased attention to how the notion of the people takes shape beyond the political sphere, off the metaphorical political stage. By examining how the people is constructed in cultural and social movements, off the political stage, we can better understand the form taken by the people when it appears in politics.

本文根据当代政治话语中发生的所谓“人民的回归”来探讨激进的民主理论。我认为，人民的回归不应仅仅被视为严格意义上的政治回归，而应被视为先前被排除在政治之外的社会因素进入政治领域的过程。以这种方式构建问题需要对政治如何被限制的看法，与社会区别开来，但在不同的时刻，也被打破了。同时，我呼吁更多地关注人民的概念如何超越政治领域，远离隐喻的政治舞台。通过考察人民在政治舞台之外的文化和社会运动中是如何构建的，我们可以更好地理解人民在政治中出现时所采取的形式。