Prispevek zavrača optimistična pričakovanja, da bo v primerjavi s prejšnjim stoletjem, v katerem so o ljudeh in njihovih družbah odločali totalitarizmi in avtoritarni voditelji, v 21. stoletju ...nasprotno dokončno zavladala demokracija. Zanje nosi glavno odgovornost poenostavljena modernizacijska paradigma, ki je usodo demokracije povezala z rastjo bruto družbenega proizvoda. Po »tretjem valu« demokratizacije v svetu pred dobrima dvema desetletjema prevladujejo danes pesimistične ocene o njenem »zatonu«, ki pa se ne nanašajo samo na komaj vzpostavljene demokracije, temveč tudi na etablirane demokracije, ki so se še ne tako dolgo ponujale kot vzorne. Vzroki za recesijo demokracije so številni, večina jih je povezana z globalno hegemonijo neoliberalizma, v kateri korporacije, najbogatejši sloj in politika, ki je podrejena interesom finančnega kompleksa, spodjedajo srednji razred in socialno državo ter ju nadomeščajo s socialnodarvinistično zamišljeno tržno družbo. Avtor svoj prispevek sklene z dvema ugotovitvama: prvič, da živimo v vmesnem času, ki ga informira ciklična kriza demokracije; in drugič, da stanje postdemokracije prinaša nove priložnosti in tveganje za teritorialno (nacionalno) in nadnacionalno demokracijo, kar zahteva alternativno teoretično in politično imaginacijo na tem področju družboslovne refleksije.
The article rejects overoptimistic expectations that contrary to the previous century, when totalitarisms and authoritarian leaders decided about the fates of people and societies, the 21
st
century will eventually establish the rule of democracy for good. Main defender of this simplified view belongs to modernization paradigm, which tied democracy to the growth of gross domestic product (GDP). Today, after the "third wave" of democratization in the world more than twenty years ago, we are witnessing rather pessimistic assessments about its "decline", which are not limited only to newly established democracies, but as well to the old ones. There are many reasons for the recession of democracy, most of them are linked to the global hegemony of neoliberalism in which corporations, the rich class and politics, subordinated to the financial complex, ruin both the middle class and welfare state by replacing them with imagined market society based on Social Darwinism. The author concludes his article with two assessments: first, we are leaving in in-between times, which are in-formed by the cyclical crisis of democracy; second, the state of post-democracy brings new opportunities and risks for territorial (national) and supra-national democracy, which requires alternative theoretical and political imagination in this area of reflection in the social sciences.
