They’re Not Dead Yet, but They Already Smell Funny: Why Democratic Theory and Our Conceptions of Democracy Are Doomed to Fail

In the current discussion about the deconsolidation of democracy, political science is gaining public relevance. In this context, the sub-discipline of democratic theory claims to be able to explain threats to democratic regimes, provide normative orientation, and point out practical solutions. This claim, however, is not convincing. First, I will show that the interpretive schemes of "regression" and "crisis" in democratic theory are bound to an anachronistic conception of democracy. As a result, they fail to recognize the gravity of the ongoing transformation toward a post-democratic epoch. Second, I will introduce a new theoretical approach and show that our political regimes are subject to a process of socio-evolutionary change that erodes the institutional and practical preconditions of democracy. To the extent that this process of de-evolution becomes more conscious, it renders conceptions of democracy implausible. By way of a critical examination of the three central approaches to democratic theory (deliberation theory, agonism, liberal pluralism) I will demonstrate that this also obliterates paradigmatic assumptions of democratic theory. With the end of the democratic age, democratic theory also comes to its historical end. In conclusion, I will indicate that a search movement for alternatives to our conceptions of democracy can already be discerned in the discourse of political theory. This discourse formulates innovative post-democratic conceptions of politics and embodies an understanding of political science that moves away from the democratic tradition of the discipline.