Alex Prior
Examining the first 99 entries in our Science of Democracy series, Alex Prior identifies an asymmetry between references to people (demos) and power (kratos). Through a discussion of this asymmetry and its possible causes, he calls for increased attention to power, in the sense of its ability to effect change Read more
Jenny Wüstenberg
Memory is crucial for democracy, but not only because it can teach citizens important norms like tolerance and inclusion. Mnemonic democracy would also mean taking into account whether the views of the majority are represented and public memory is underpinned by legitimate state power, Jenny Wüstenberg writes Read more
Jennifer Greiman
Herman Melville’s 'ruthless democracy' is a creative performance, argues Jennifer Greiman, which guides Melville’s experimental prose and poetry. This sought to reimagine democratic relations, possibilities, and ways of being as matters for aesthetic thought and work – with strong implications for political theory Read more
Janusz Ruszkowski
The most important thing for democracy is to establish a catalogue of its constant, repeatable and inalienable features – the so-called DNA of democracy. Such a DNA code could no longer be manipulated or diluted, because nothing without it could be called democracy, writes Janusz Ruszkowski Read more
Helge K. Nylenna
Democracy as a basic structure in organisational life is a given in most Western NGOs. However, church doctrine challenges the Montesquieuan principle that the body of the people possess the supreme power. Still, with reference to the Norwegian case, Helge Nylenna argues that, like other NGOs, churches can be democratic Read more
Patrick Nitzschner
In crisis. Regressing. Dying. Such unsettling assessments of democracy’s current state have sparked renewed interest in militant democracy – the justifiable repression of anti-democrats. Given the idea’s troubled history, Patrick Nitzscner welcomes attempts to place militant interventions on a securely democratic footing, but remains sceptical of their likely success Read more
Kathryn Hicks
Kathryn Hicks and Sharon Stanley argue that the contemporary moral panic around obesity emerges from and exacerbates neoliberal tendencies that diminish democratic institutions and imaginaries. Given historical associations between race, gender and fatness, the ostensibly neutral language of health deepens existing lines of democratic exclusion Read more
Nick Vlahos
Nick Vlahos argues that to fully animate the data mountain that Jean-Paul Gagnon has amassed about the plurality and interrelation of democratic adjectives and forms, we must capture the way in which these variegated types of democracy enclose and open how the public can collectively govern Read more
