ABSTRACT
The editors’ introduction points to the recent trend of violent attacks on democratic norms and institutions and explores the broader question of how democracy can survive the challenges of the Anthropocene. The editors present a working definition of liberal democracy and make the case that the fundamental practice of government that incorporates public consent does not rely on embracing one particular cultural tradition but has ample precedent in a diverse range of human societies around the world. Despite this broad precedent, however, the practice of democracy will continue to face serious threats in this century and beyond, as an inevitable consequence of the cascading environmental, economic, and political disruptions of the Anthropocene epoch. It will be necessary for democratic norms and institutions to adapt to these planetary crises by evolving beyond the Westphalian paradigm of the sovereign nation state. The editors briefly survey the topics of the 15 chapters in this volume and relate them to the evolution of democratic norms and transnational institutions since 1945, the challenges that democracy and transnational cooperation face in the early twenty-first century, and their prospects for survival and further evolution in this century and beyond.
