De Gruyter Handbook of Democratic Theory

Modern democracy encompasses both processes of political decision-making via intermediary bodies and opinion formation through a pluralistic civil society. The structural complexity of democratic life calls for an adequately updated democratic theory. Theorists cannot ignore the challenges that real-world democracies face around the world, from unprecedented and revived discriminations to rampant socio-economic inequalities, from oligarchic concentrations of power and wealth to new technologies that redefine human freedom.

Ambitiously broad (58 chapters by 69 contributors across countries), this handbook builds on scholarship that has made vital contributions to the ever-evolving landscape of theories of democracy. It also sets the research agenda for the near future, encouraging an internally pluralistic democratic theory that combines historical, normative, and empirical approaches in the study of domestic, international, and global developments. Bringing together specialists from the fields and subfields of political and constitutional theory, political science, and political philosophy, it examines democracy through five major clusters of themes: Types; Principles; Procedures and Institutions; Justifications; and Futures.