Farewell to Democracy?

Abstract

As recent events demonstrate so dramatically, the spirit of democracy, the universal impulse to self-government and equality, lives on and thrives, generating mass uprisings against autocratic domination, even in areas where democracy has heretofore had little purchase. However, the reach of global capitalism and the burgeoning debt crisis impose overwhelming constraints and an essentially subaltern status on most latecomers to democratic development. Given also the effective monopoly of autocratic governments on armed force, institutionalized misogyny, the potential divisiveness of ethnic nationalisms and repressive religions among the popular forces, and the consequent fragility of civil society, it is not clear in the early twenty-first century that even the most robust democratic institutions will be able to maintain themselves. Still, if unbridled optimism is hardly in order, hopefulness is certainly possible.