Democratization beyond the post-democratic turn: towards a research agenda on new conceptions of citizen participation

Following extensive debates about post-democracy and post-politics, scholarly attention has shifted to conceptualizing the ongoing transformation of democracy. In this endeavour, the change in understandings, expectations and functions of political participation is a key parameter. Improving citizen participation is widely regarded as the hallmark of democratization. Yet, a variety of actors are also increasingly ambivalent about democratic institutions and the further expansion of participation. Meanwhile, new forms of participation are gaining in significance – neoliberal activation, the responsibilization of consumers, digital data mining, managed behaviour guided by choice architects – which some believe much improve representation, but which others perceive as a threat to the citizens’ autonomy. This article introduces a special issue focusing on the participation-democratization nexus in well-established democracies in the economically affluent global North. Based on a critical review of popular narratives of post-democracy and post-politics we sketch the notion of the post-democratic turn – which offers a new perspective on emerging forms of participation and in this special issue serves as a conceptual lens for their analysis. We then revisit more traditional conceptualizations of democratic participation which are challenged by the post-democratic turn. The article concludes with an overview of the individual contributions to this special issue

Post-capitalism, post-growth, post-consumerism? Eco-political hopes beyond sustainability

As a road map for a structural transformation of socially and ecologically self-destructive consumer societies, the paradigm of sustainability is increasingly regarded as a spent force. Yet, its exhaustion seems to coincide with the rebirth of several ideas reminiscent of earlier, more radical currents of eco-political thought: liberation from capitalism, consumerism and the logic of growth. May the exhaustion of the sustainability paradigm finally reopen the intellectual and political space for the big push beyond the established socio-economic order? Looking from the perspective of social and eco-political theory, this article argues that the new narratives (and social practices) of postcapitalism, degrowth and post-consumerism cannot plausibly be read as signalling a new eco-political departure. It suggests that beyond the exhaustion of the sustainability paradigm, we are witnessing, more than anything, the further advancement of the politics of unsustainability - and that in this politics the new narratives of hope may themselves be playing a crucial role

The legitimation crisis of democracy: emancipatory politics, the environmental state and the glass ceiling to socio-ecological transformation

The democratic legitimation imperativeof the modern state has been conceptualised as the barrier that stops the environmental state from developing into a green or eco-state–and thus as the glass ceiling to a socio-ecological transformation of capitalist consumer democracies. Here, I suggest that this state-theoretical explanation of the glass ceiling needs to be supplemented by an analysis of why democratic norms and procedures, which had once been regarded as essential for any socio-ecological transformation, suddenly appearas one of its main obstacles. I conceptualise the new eco-political dysfunctionality of democracy as one dimension of a more encompassing legitimation crisis of democracy which, in turn, has triggered a profound transformation of democracy. Ultimately, exactly this transformation constitutes the glass ceiling to the socioecological restructuring of capitalist consumer societies. It changes democracy into a tool for the politics of unsustainability, in which the legitimation-dependent state is a key actor

Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit auf der Suche nach einer politischen Form. Konturen der demokratischen Postwachstumsgesellschaft. Abhandlung

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht das Dreiecksverhältnis zwischen ökologischer Nachhaltigkeit, wirtschaftlichem Wachstum und liberaler Demokratie und stellt fest, dass dieses sich in den westlichen Konsumgesellschaften im Angesicht der zunehmenden lebensweltlichen Manifestation der "Grenzen des Wachstums" grundlegend neu konfiguriert. Dabei zeichnen sich tatsächlich die Konturen einer "demokratischen Postwachstumsgesellschaft" ab - allerdings unter gänzlich anderen Vorzeichen, als es der überwiegende Teil der Transformationsforschung ersehnt. In der Absicht, einen Beitrag zur Rückkopplung der normativen und sich als transformativ verstehenden Teile der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung an die sozialwissenschaftliche Analyse moderner Gesellschaften zu leisten, zeigt der Beitrag zunächst, wie im Bereich umweltpolitischer und demokratiebezogener Diskurse zentrale Narrative, die über Jahrzehnte die Debatte bestimmt haben, heute ihre Glaubwürdigkeit verlieren und sich damit das Feld für eine Neujustierung der Dreiecksbeziehung eröffnet. Anschließend wird aus gesellschaftstheoretischer Perspektive ausgeleuchtet, wie die Demokratie im Zeichen moderner Subjektivitätsverständnisse und bestenfalls noch moderater Wachstumsraten zunehmend zu einem Mittel der "nachhaltigen" Verteidigung nicht-nachhaltiger Lebensstile wird. Entschiedener denn je, so zeigt sich, erheben moderne Konsumgesellschaften die "Politik der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit" zu ihrem Prinzip

The dialectic of democracy: modernization, emancipation and the great regression

In some of the most established and supposedly immutable liberal democracies, diverse social groups are losing confidence not only in established democratic institutions, but in the idea of liberal representative democracy itself. Meanwhile, an illiberal and anti-egalitarian transformation of democracy evolves at an apparently unstoppable pace. This democratic fatigue syndrome, the present article suggests, is qualitatively different from the crises of Democracy which have been debated for some considerable time. Focusing on mature democracies underpinned by the ideational tradition of European Enlightenment, the article theorizes this Syndrome and the striking transformation of democracy in terms of a dialectic process in which the very norm that once gave birth to the democratic project - the modernist idea of the autonomous subject - metamorphoses into its gravedigger, or at least into the driver of its radical reformulation. The article further develops aspects of my existing work on second-order emancipation and simulative democracy. Taking a theoretical rather than empirical approach, it aims to provide a conceptual framework for more empirically oriented analyses of changing forms of political articulation and participation

The Collaborative Management of Sustained Unsustainability: On the Performance of Participatory Forms of Environmental Governance

n modern democratic consumer societies, decentralized, participative, and consensus-oriented forms of multi-stakeholder governance are supplementing, and often replacing, conventional forms of state-centered environmental government. The engagement in all phases of the policy process of diverse social actors has become a hallmark of environmental good governance. This does not mean to say, however, that these modes of policy-making have proved particularly successful in resolving the widely debated multiple sustainability crisis. In fact, they have been found wanting in terms of their ability to respond to democratic needs and their capacity to resolve environmental problems. So why have these participatory forms of environmental governance become so prominent? What exactly is their appeal? What do they deliver? Exploring these questions from the perspective of eco-political and sociological theory, this article suggests that these forms of environmental governance represent a performative kind of eco-politics that helps liberal consumer societies to manage their inability and unwillingness to achieve the socio-ecological transformation that scientists and environmental activists say is urgently required. This reading of the prevailing policy approaches as the collaborative management of sustained unsustainability adds an important dimension to the understanding of environmental governance and contemporary eco-politics more generally

Politicisation beyond post-politics: new social activism and the reconfiguration of political discourse

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008/9 social movements reminis-cent of ecoemancipatory movements of the 1980s powerfully repoliticised the post-political order of neoliberalism. Additionally, and more recently, right-wing populist movements, Fridays for Future or political mobilisations related to the COVID-19 pandemic have substantially refashioned both the understanding of post-politics and the patterns of its repoliticisation. This article introduces a special issue on Movements and Activism beyond Post-politics. In light of these recent shifts we revisit the notion of post-politics, identify key characteristics of contemporary forms of repoliticisation, zoom in on academic debates about prefigurative and transformative politics and – following a preview of the contributions collated in the special issue – explore what the ongoing reconfiguration of public discourse may imply for further research into social movement activism beyond post-politics

Rethinking Populism: Peak democracy, liquid identity and the performance of sovereignty

Despite the burgeoning literature on right-wing populism, there is still considerable uncertainty about its causes, its impact on liberal democracies and about promising counter-strategies. Inspired by recent suggestions that (1) the emancipatory left has made a significant contribution to the proliferation of the populist right; and (2) populist movements, rather than challenging the established socio-political order, in fact stabilize and further entrench its logic, this article argues that an adequate understanding of the populist phenomenon necessitates a radical shift of perspective: beyond the democratic and emancipatory norms, which still govern most of the relevant literature. Approaching its subject matter via democratic theory and modernization theory, it undertakes a reassessment of the triangular relationship between modernity, democracy and populism. It finds that the latter is not helpfully conceptualized as anti-modernist or anti-democratic but should, instead, be regarded as a predictable feature of the form of politics distinctive of today's third modernity