Democracy comes in lots of different flavours. How do we make sense of this? Is having all these meanings a feature or a bug? John Capps suggests that the idea of 'open texture' can help us better understand democratic theory and practice
Democracy today is a colonial artefact tied to violent borders. Moreover, it produces an increasing number of non-citizens, unable to participate in democracy where they live. Erica Dorn and Federico Vaz argue that Gagnon's courageous enquiry into defining the historical landscape of democracy can bring more equity to its current – unjust – paradigm
Jean-Paul Gagnon views the construction of a taxonomy of democracy as a key way to address challenges to democracy. Yet, argues Ramon van der Does, such fundamental research is a luxury we cannot afford if we seek to be effective in bringing power to the people.
The project of collecting democracy’s words has a quietist undertone. Petr Špecián argues that it provides a desirable counterweight to the activist urge to rethink and redesign the political order. Especially so in today’s challenging times
Jean-Paul Gagnon’s project involves the collection, labelling, and organisation of published words on democracy. He intends it to help democratic scientists to counter authoritarianism. But, argues Marta Wojciechowska, the project’s method may overlook issues of power involved in creating and publishing meanings of democracy
Andreas Avgousti asserts that collecting democracy’s words gives us a window into the democratic imagination. He reads Jean-Paul Gagnon’s expanding database as an illustration of democratic virtues
Jean-Paul Gagnon’s ambitious project expands our democratic imaginaries. While inspiring, Antonin Lacelle-Webster argues that making sense of democracy requires more than a lexicon. Resisting the prevailing sense of disrepair in today’s democratic politics asks us to pay more attention to democracy's appropriation, design, and normative value
Leonardo Fiorespino finds Jean-Paul Gagnon’s proposed lexicon of democracy wanting in its base assumptions around knowledge and arbitrariness. Moreover, he wonders, can we really trust 'democracy's words'?
Today, democratic imaginaries are diluted while parochial understandings of democracy are presented as universal. Such a state of affairs, argues Pablo Ouziel, calls for a deeply diverse speaking-with multilogue amongst democratic traditions
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.
