Contemporary Democratic Theory

This course is concerned with tracing debates and concepts in contemporary democratic theory. The 21st century has seen resurgent authoritarianism and democratic backsliding in both so-called “advanced” liberal western nation-states and more fragile democracies, as well as vibrant democratic insurgencies grounded in popular uprisings and social movements animated by economic inequality, denial of political freedom, climate change, racial justice, etc., that nevertheless appear unable to overcome sclerotic institutions and dislodge current distributions of political power. Is democracy dying? Or has democratic politics always been bound up with inequality despite its aspirations to egalitarianism? This course will focus on the work of twentieth and twenty-first century democratic thinkers, paying particular attention to the perspectives elaborated by democracy’s ‘others’: black thinkers in the U.S., feminist theorists, queer theorists, etc.