ABSTRACT
The chapter on democracy starts by analysing democracy's core components, arguing that democracy is articulated by the presence of both representation and participation, and by the presence of a political community. In addition, the chapter argues that in contemporary European societies, the statist and liberal-democratic interpretations of democracy have also achieved a hegemonic position and contribute to its defining elements. In a second section, the chapter then outlines five areas of political struggle and contestation within the realm of democracy, namely the struggles over the balance between representation and participation, the reach of democratic practices beyond institutionalized politics, the balance between democratic procedures and value-discourses, the nature of the political community, and the deployment of democratic procedure. In the third section, the chapter discusses the four conditions of possibility that support democracy: societal stability, the state's legitimacy, an active political community and a democratic culture. Finally, in the last section, we find five threats to democracy which try to dislocate democracy itself, namely the frustrations caused by democracy's unfulfilled promises, the absence of participation, the (re)centralization of power, the restrictions imposed on the political community and the use of violence. The chapter ends with a visual representation of all elements.
