Can Empowered Citizens Save Democracy?

This forum offers critical perspectives on Craig Calhoun, Dilip Gaonkar and Charles Taylor’s Degenerations of Democracy. In her contribution, Ilaria Cozzaglio, raises questions on the standpoint from which a critical perspective on our current democratic crisis is most effectively formulated. Taking an internalist perspective from the citizens’ perspectives on democracy’s contemporary crisis, as the book does, is essential for understanding our current condition, but it also raises new questions on how best to challenge the status quo while respecting citizens’ demands. Jayson Harsin explores what happens when we place some of the most recent media and communications technologies and practices at the center of our analysis. He asks how an examination of the fundamentally asymmetrical resources at the disposal of governments and particularly private media operations may be shaping democracy’s degeneration more than the book suggests. Stephen W. Sawyer builds on the book’s historical dimensions to question the emancipatory possibilities of a renewed republicanism, as opposed to reinforcing democracy as a mode of social organization and a multi-scalar approach to solving public problems, referencing the EU as an example. Craig Calhoun and Charles Taylor respond by clarifying their position and suggesting ways that their analyses may be extended to both respond to and build on these comments. They conclude with a cautious and critical optimism, rooted in a hard-fought commitment to hope.