The political condition of our time

Abstract

Faculté des sciences sociales, Canada Do we live today in a particularly difficult or turbulent political period? This question is more and more often raised in both scholarly and public debates, and the starting assumption is that it will be answered affirmatively. More specifically, it is assumed that we experience a crisis of democracy, or at least a transformation of democracy. Like its predecessors, 'post-industrial society' during the 1960s and 'post-modernity' during the 1980s, the term 'post-democracy' diffused very quickly and widely after it was coined at the very beginning of this century. Often regardless of-in many cases, presumably, in ignorance of-the analysis proposed by Colin Crouch (2004), it seemed easy to accept that many current societies had de-democratized, that their core democratic self-understanding had been profoundly undermined in actual political practices. Receding tides? The Spanish novelist and essayist Javier Marías (2018) recently reflected in his regular column in the periodical El País Semanal about the ways in which the world has been transformed since the beginning of this century. He agreed with the widespread opinion that those transformations are highly worrying, but then took a step back. If we move from observations about this recent past to the beginnings of the 19th and 20th centuries then our current experience pales in comparison. Between 1800 and 1818, the world had gone from revolution to reaction, passing through major warfare. Between 1900 and 1918, the proud march of industrial progress, celebrated in World Fairs, had led to the mass slaughtering of the First World War. While Marías ominously concluded by wishing that the years 2039-45 may not resemble the related period of the preceding century, his reflections overall demand to carefully look at longer-term historical developments before rushing to strong conclusions about the present. The aftermath of the First World War can be seen as witnessing the apparent breakthrough of modern democracy, at least in formal terms. While democracy had been on 822467S SI0010.