Andreas Avgousti
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 Read more
Felipe Arocena
The internet has not, as many hoped, delivered positive change for democracy. But according to Felipe Arocena, there is still a meaningful way to confront the authoritarian advances of new technological powers and reinforce democracy – rebellion Read more
Antonin Lacelle-Webster
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 Read more
Martino Comelli
Christian democracy is the political culture that has been the driving force behind European integration. Yet, according to Martino Comelli, it has also facilitated the democratic backsliding of some countries of central and east Europe by providing an illiberal political toolbox of narratives and policies Read more
Hager Ali
The study of regime types, Hager Ali argues, is imbalanced. Theories and concepts of democracy have received attention for decades. But amid the resurgence of autocracies, scholars of authoritarianism still do not have the luxury of nuanced typologies to dissect the broad spectrum of non-democratic regimes Read more
Leonardo Fiorespino
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'? Read more
Alistair Cole
Incumbent French President Macron has been re-elected for a second five-year term. This is not a simple success story, Alistair Cole argues. The election revealed disturbing trends in French democracy. Read more
Pablo Ouziel
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 Read more