Abstract

Post-democracy has become an important contribution to the discourse on democratic theory. On the one hand, this article appreciates the impulses opened up by the diagnosis of post-democracy. On the other hand, it criticizes some problematic presuppositions. Especially the thesis of post-democracy seems to imply an ideal of democracy that is oriented toward a certain type of democracy, without critically discussing it. The tradition of philosophical pragmatism is drawn upon to show how an alternative critical diagnosis of democracy might look. The pragmatist tradition, it is argued, avoids the problems of the diagnosis of post-democracy outlined and develops a normatively grounded concept of democracy. The normative aim of democracy consists in focusing on the experience of vulnerability in the face of violence and suffering. Thus, democracy should be conceptualised as a reflexive practice that asks how to deal with these experiences of vulnerability.