This seminar explores contemporary democratic theory. We will address four key concepts of democratic theory (democracy as deliberation, participation, representation, and conflict). Does democracy require the active participation of all citizens or their electoral representation? What role does the public exchange of arguments or political struggles play? We combine each theoretical approach with a contemporary political challenge: How can the deliberative approach deal with political activism? How is the ideal of participatory democracy changing in the digital age? Which idea of representation lies behind the idea of lotteries in politics? How should questions of migration be addressed from an agonistic perspective? The aim is to gain an overview of the most important strands of thinking in democratic theory and to provide comparative perspectives on how different democratic theory approaches are able to deal with contemporary political challenges and crises.
Literature
Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bagg, Samuel E. 2023. The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Lehrende/r: Svenja Ahlhaus