Articles by Dimitra Mareta

September 25, 2025

🦋 On democracy’s 'Fourth Theorist'

Dimitra Mareta

This new phase in the Science of Democracy series posits the idea of a 'Fourth Theorist' – a still-to-exist thinker who may in future come to life. But, asks Dimitra Mareta, will that person, or thing, deliver on their promises? Or will it the Fourth Theorist prove a false idol?

🦋 Is it post-democracy; or maybe authoritarian neo/liberalism?

Dimitra Mareta

'Democracy is in crisis'. We have heard this claim since the 1930s, and new terms regularly surface to describe democracy’s transformations through crisis. Of these terms, argues Dimitra Mareta, post-democracy and authoritarian neo/liberalism are the most challenging. While they describe either a strong or weak state, neither term captures the implications for the people living under such regimes

Dimitra Mareta

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Dimitra holds a PhD in political theory from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens.

In the academic year 2024–2025, she was an adjunct lecturer in political theory at the University of Crete.

She was an adjunct lecturer in political science at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for the academic year 2020–2021, where she was also a postdoctoral researcher, and at the Hellenic Open University during academic years 2018–2019 and 2020–2021.

Her research and teaching interests include political philosophy, conservatism, the state, neo/liberalism, and women’s studies.

Dimitra has published academic articles and has participated in national and international conferences.

@MaretaDimitra

Her chapter on the theory of democracy appears in the Introduction to Political Science (Gutenberg, Athens, 2023) eds. Costas Eleftheriou, Yannis Tsirbas, Panos Koliostasis and Sophia Kanaouti, which presents theories of democracy from Ancient Athens to the present day.

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