Mixing up the Crisis of Democracy with the Crisis of a Certain Theory of Democracy

Abstract The article claims that the dominant interpretations of the current crisis of democracy have many implicit normative assumptions as background and basis, previously established according to particular theories of democracy. Unraveling such assumptions may allow us to understand the theoretical limitations of such approaches as well as point out the politically self-destructive alternatives they project of either returning to the institutional model before the crisis or succumbing to authoritarianism. Examining the case of the functioning of Brazil's political system in recent decades, that initial approach should allow us to understand the specificity of the crisis of democracy in this country. As in the case of dominant explanations of the current crisis of democracy more broadly, the development on Brazil will also show the part that dominant explanations in political science play in it, and how it obscures the understanding of ongoing changes and the fight against the current authoritarian threat.