ABSTRACT
The first part of the chapter deals with populism, showing how – despite the hollowing of the concepts of the “people” or the “majority” – reference to them remains as vivid as ever. Examples are cited from political speeches which try to resuscitate the never too convincing idea of the general will, or revive the just as dubious method of popular consultation. The second part is about the concept of illiberal democracy which has been popularized by Fareed Zakaria as a recent synonym for majority tyranny. Finally, the third part deals with those authors (Peter Mair, Colin Crouch, and Sheldon Wolin) who speak of the “hollowing of Western democracies” and question whether today’s Western regimes are democracies at all, or rather “post-democracies” or “inverted totalitarianisms.”
