ABSTRACT
Despite an overwhelming consensus among scholars and politicians that democracy as a practice is in decline worldwide (Schmitter, 2015), there are competing viewpoints about the reasons for this, what might be done, and also the validity of interpretations of data supporting the “crisis” view (Diamond & Plattner, 2015; Levitsky & Way, 2015). Rather than the current decline being seen as the “reverse wave” of democratisation (Huntington, 1991) or a “democracy recession” (Diamond, 2015), by understanding it as a gap between the ideal of democracy and everyday practice (Norris, 2011), this chapter reflects on possible reasons for the decline in trust in Australian politics (Stoker et al., 2018 a, 2018 b) and what we might do about it. Despite 25 years of economic growth, Australians have grown more distrustful of politicians, and disillusioned with democratic processes. Democracy comes alive in concrete interactions between people, when they share views (Hansen, 2011, p. 123), when they comment on shared concerns, and when they listen to each other to provide a range of perspectives with which to view the world (Arendt, 1958). This chapter explores how political and historical approaches might support democratic re-orientations needed through plurality and deliberation, which underpins the central core of democracy.
