The End of Democracy

Abstract

Democracy in the 21st century is exhibiting some radical dis- continuities in terms of its forms and institutions and needs to be rethought, if we wish to have a sustainable future. Democ- racy increasingly will be shaped by three realities: the demise of the nation state; the failure of representational liberal democ- racy; and the radical impacts of resource insufficiency and climate change. Yet if no government, however tyrannical, survives for long except by consent of the people, then that consent can serve as the starting point for rethinking what is meant by “democracy.” Three terms are offered as functional categories that allow for an assessment of democratic forms and institutions: subsistence, operational and systemic. Each describes how and why the population acquiesces to gover- nance and under what conditions.