Post Post-Cold War Democratic Theory

Abstract This article identifies three central axes in the contemporary constellation of democratic theory and practice: (1) redefining the roots of democratic power, or kratos, in response to new challenges to popular participation in democracy; (2) the rescaling of the demos given the growing dissatisfaction with liberal cosmopolitan approaches to global democracy; and (3) the de-parochialization of democracy within a multipolar world in light of democratic erosion in liberal democracies across Europe and the Americas. This article arrives at these axes by way of revisiting the relation of the two concepts constituting democracy's etymological roots— demos and kratos —in recent work in democratic theory. It concludes by urging to move beyond the post-Cold War social imaginary by exploring the question “What demos and kratos for the twenty-first century?”