This article is devoted to the analysis of the origins of the unsatisfactory situation concerning refugees, and searching for a new model of emancipatory politics that will be useful to overcome this situation. The main thesis of the article is that the positions articulated by G. Agamben, J. Ranciere, and J. Butler can be combined in a radical democratic model of politic that is based on a revised concept of human rights. First, the authors turn to the basic categories used in the analysis of political theories: national state, sovereignty, refugees, stateless people, and human rights. Then, the authors examine the context of the emerging liberal conception of human rights and the critics of this conception. After presenting the main arguments against the liberal conception of human rights, the authors turn to the theory of sovereign power. One of the main conclusions of this theory is that emancipatory political theorists should refuse the concept of human rights. Agamben’s argumentation of such a refusal is based on the statement about the inevitable connection between human rights and state power. The authors point out both the positive and negative aspects of Agamben’s approach as well as showing its advantages and limitations. Next, the authors demonstrate an alternative approach to human rights as proposed by J. Ranciere. At the end of the article, the authors present a constructive model of emancipatory politics which incorporates the ideas of G. Agamben, J. Ranciere, and J. Butler. For the authors of this paper, this model is free of the main drawbacks of the approaches under consideration. The advantages of the model are an expansive view of power, and the reintroduction of the notion of solidarity into emancipatory theory.