The ‘post-democracy’ diagnosis, as developed in political science by Colin Croach and others, dovetails with public debates around the so-called democracy deficit and a widespread critique of neoliberalism and de-democratization. In this paper, it is claimed that the question as to whether or not we have entered a postdemocratic state cannot be answered as long as it remains unresolved whether or not democratic discontent is only produced by external factors, i.e. factors exogenous to the fundamental framework of democracy as a political regime. The paper follows a hint by Guillermo O’Donnell that there might be something within the regime of democracy which produces such discomfort, i.e. that there are endogenous reasons for democratic discomfort. Should this be the case, democracy may be tied not only to an unavoidable experience of deficiency but also to a symbolic arrangement that allows for the ‘post-foundational’ acceptance of democracy’s ultimately ungroundable nature. However, such question, it is claimed, cannot be answered by empirically listing indicators of democracy’s decline. To answer it, we will have to turn towards post-foundational theories of democracy that take into account the very symbolic structuring of democracy – including the democratic theories of Claude Lefort, Jacques Rancière, and Chantal Mouffe.
