Democracy, Crisis and Representation. Rethinking the Founding Paradigms

Abstract

Crises can also be moments of transformation and rethinking. Faced with the current malaise, democratic reparation and renewal need some fundamental rethinking of the paradigms and mechanisms of democratic politics in the 21st century. This panel offers timely reflections on some of important aspects of representative democracy by exploring: the complex set and character of representative relationships that is needed for making democratic politics work; a new conception of education based on human flourishing that can contribute to renovating the quality of democratic politics and societies; the contribution of the deliberative model of democracy to strengthen representative democracy against its vulnerability in terms of epistemic quality, effective accountability, and constitutional backsliding; a more nuanced analysis of citizens’ disaffection to politics so to address its causes and offer structural and affective strategies to address the current disconnect; the different typologies of democratic breakdown, particularly focussing on questions related to balance of power within the polity. Such analysis would provide a map of the diverse causes of democratic breakdown and some useful lessons to either resist or revert it.

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