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Political Concepts

April 11, 2022

🦋 Beyond words: rescuing the democratic ideal

Viktor Orri Valgarðsson Viktor Valgarðsson argues that words are not enough to understand the concept of democracy. 'Democracy' denotes an important ideal that we must not sacrifice on a mountain of words. Read more
April 7, 2022

🦋 Who determines the practical meanings of democracy?

Friedel Marquardt Jean-Paul Gagnon’s endeavour has great potential for bringing unknown or ignored definitions to the fore. However, Friedel Marquardt argues, we hinder understanding and cut its empowering potential short if the communities these definitions are about do not get a chance to speak about their democracies Read more
March 31, 2022

🦋 The 'Science of Democracy' demands scientific thinking

Mauricio Mandujano Manriquez Jean-Paul Gagnon's data mountain for rescuing the abandoned Science of Democracy is a worthy challenge. Nevertheless, Mauricio Mandujano Manriquez advocates for giving precedence to the epistemic commitments of the scientific enterprise and their implications Read more
March 24, 2022

🌊 Anti-democratic or exclusionary? Illiberalism's undertows matter

Jasper T. Kauth Not all illiberalisms are the same, argues Jasper T. Kauth. While anti-democratic, disruptive illiberalism and anti-liberal, ideological illiberalism may act simultaneously, analysing them individually will help us identify drivers of this phenomenon. Read more
March 23, 2022

Why we must beware the oversimplification of political terms

Ana Tereza Duarte Lima de Barros Political terms such as communist, fascist, and populist have become so elastic that they end up losing their analytical precision and meaning, write Ana Tereza Duarte Lima de Barros and Jorge Henrique Oliveira Gomes. It is our responsibility to use them with accuracy Read more
March 21, 2022

🦋 Mountains of data need a (democratic) horizon

Rafael Khachaturian According to Rafael Khachaturian, Jean-Paul Gagnon’s 'lexical approach' misses the interpretive dimension of democracy. Instead, we need a self-reflexive theory of concept creation that treats democracy as an unfulfilled political project Read more
March 17, 2022

🦋 Democracy is under threat, and we must use theory to save it

Simone Chambers This is not the time for collecting butterflies, writes Simone Chambers in response to Jean-Paul Gagnon. The threats to democracy we face today call for innovation and engagement, not typologies and definitions Read more
March 1, 2022

🦋 Democracy by any other name

Kathleen McCrudden Illert Jean-Paul Gagnon has argued that the most promising way of approaching the total texture of democracy is through words. But, asks Kathleen McCrudden Illert, what’s in a name? Many theories that we would recognise today as democratic were not, due to their historical context, associated with the signifier ‘democracy’ – and these concepts will be missing from Gagnon’s data mountain. Read more

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