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democratic theory

October 4, 2021

🦋 Not deliberating about democracies is a deadly trap

Patricia Roberts-Miller Responding to Jean-Paul Gagnon’s blog on the science of democracy, Patricia Roberts-Miller recalls 'Thucydides' trap' to explain the dangers of forcing one meaning of democracy over others, as happened during the Athenian Empire. Silencing other democracies harms people through wars overseas and suppression at home. And it can, in turn, ruin those very democracies that are doing the silencing Read more
September 28, 2021

🦋 The tension between the singular and multivarious conceptions of democracy

Marcin Kaim The merit of Jean-Paul Gagnon’s project is that it calls attention to the friction between singular and plural conception of democracy. While this is a well-known topic in democratic theory, it does not remain central. However, writes Marcin Kaim, a lexicon, and therefore a 'total texture' of democracy, could bring about a change Read more
September 20, 2021

🦋 Why the concept of democracy, and data collection, matter

Tetsuki Tamura Tetsuki Tamura argues we need a better and wider concept of democracy to capture democratic practices in unlikely places, such as the family Read more
September 16, 2021

🦋 What is democracy? An empirical response to the Butterfly Collector

Leonardo Morlino Jean-Paul Gagnon's original blog in this series asked ‘what is democracy?’ Leonardo Morlino brings an empirical perspective to this question. Contextualising and unpacking it, he then develops an empirical strategy of research for democrats to follow Read more
September 14, 2021

🦋 Gagnon’s 'data mountain': a lookout point for revolutions to come

Dannica Fleuß Building a ‘dictionary of democracies’, as Jean-Paul Gagnon proposes, will not render a revolution of democratic theory. Yet the data mountain may be a valuable point of departure for a 'decentred' understanding of democracy and, in consequence, for several theoretical, empirical, and political innovations, writes Dannica Fleuß Read more
September 10, 2021

🦋 Democracy may mean multiple things, but that should not stop us recasting our stumbling democratic politics

Michael Saward untain’, but argues that its size and complexity should not prevent us sifting and analysing our findings to design new models of democracy Read more
September 7, 2021

🌊 Despite illiberal challenges, the golden age of democracy is now

Lea Heyne rather than the exception, writes Lea Heyne. The world is moving in a direction of more democracy, not less Read more
September 3, 2021

🦋 The archive and the demos

Eva Cherniavsky Can the people reclaim failing democratic institutions around the globe? Eva Cherniavsky argues that the demos itself must first be reconstituted. In this context, democracy’s myriad historical meanings assume an immediate political relevance Read more

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