Debates over characteristics of democratic governance have shaped this concept to such an extent that we almost always talk about democracy with adjectives. Democracy can be liberal, representative, defective, illegitimate, embedded, consolidated, or radical – to name only a few. Thus, in contemporary discourse democracy is a contested concept of governance and one could argue that there are as many democratic theories as democratic theorists. But what is the difference between, for example, representative and radical democracy? Theories of radical democracy emphasize in general that, in order to reclaim or re-conceptualize democracy and politics, the influence and steering capacities of the constituent powers need re-actualization or a novel position within the context of governance and government. On the other hand theorists of rather conventionalist approaches to democracy access the topic with a focus on the problem-solving capacities. Here democracy is a sophisticated system to regulate consequences of societal interaction, participation is only necessary to populate political institutions every now and then. Given this context one can speak of a theoretical divide between input- and output-oriented approaches to democracy! And I will argue that along the lines of this theoretical division one may find the fundamental characteristics of a concept of democracy that needs no adjectives because of its fundamentally democratic character. In this article I intend to firstly reconstruct the mentioned theoretical divide between participatory and problemsolving approaches to democracy. A second step will go beyond the standard either-or-mentality of theorists defending a political program, here the aim is to reconcile the approaches: with reference to Dewey's theory of democracy I will sketch democracy as integrating the two moments of participation and problem-solving. The conclusive paragraph will venture a perspective on institutional settings that could enable society to (re)form its political and organizational structure in substantially democratic ways.
