Jan Bíba (ed.): Democracy and Opinion. On Nadia Urbinati´s Democratic Theory

Special Issue of The Philosophical Journal 1/2024

In what we have come to see as a time of crisis for democracy, it is important to refl ect not only on the dangers facing contemporary democracies but also on the nature of democracy itself. The articles collected in this volume aim to engage with the work of the Italian political theorist Nadia Urbinati and her conception of representative democracy as diarchy. The volume provides a discussion of many of the vital concepts in contemporary democratic theory and of the challenges that contemporary democracies must tackle, including populism, oligarchy, and the rise of illiberal democracy. Some of the articles herein also draw on the recent Central European experience of democratic backsliding.