Introduction: A New Analytic Tool

Abstract

This introduction offers a post-foundational analytic tool for the study of democracy across time and space. The tool helps to manage the complexity of the discourse on democracy. This chapter argues that we do not know what democracy is. The chapter is determined to offer a way forward. It establishes that this book will explain a theory of basic democracy. It describes that the democracy theories, concepts, practices and their nuances are many and that the resulting ambiguity interferes with politics globally. The lack of a scientific definition of democracy is a serious and present danger for contemporary politics and society. This logic is used to argue for the importance of the model and to justify why we need a way forward.