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Unlike today’s currently admitted idea, modern politics does not only rely on the defense and the promotion of human rights, but also on an attempt to consolidate legitimate powers in a world where authority cannot be based on nature, tradition or transcendence. Between the 18th and 20th centuries, this attempt has engendered a coherent number of compromises between the logic of liberal trends and the requirements of power, from which contemporary politics has rather deviated. Consequently, we can confirm that we have come out of the « classical era of modernity » and question the conditions of a new compromise between liberalism and power.