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• Neo-Hobbesian democracy: The theory of modus vivendi and democratic legitimacy

  25-41

  Milán Pap

  Views:

  44

  In political theory, the criticism of Rawlsian constructivist liberalism has been articulated in
  theories of political realism. John Gray, one of the promoters of realist liberalism, recommends
  a neo-Hobbesian way of social coexistence which is based on the conflictual and antagonistic
  idea of political life. It takes social values and forms of life as incommensurable in modern
  multicultural societies. Taking value-pluralism and its conflicts seriously, a theory of modus
  vivendi has been articulated among realist political thinkers. Being a post-liberal (or post-Enlightenment) theory, modus vivendi is more a practice oriented and open-ended theory than
  philosophical constructions based on high morality. Modus vivendi theorists make an emphasis
  on the peaceful co-existence of social groups and a moral minimum of the political society. One of
  the deficiency of the theory is that it says not much about democracy, though it would be highly
  useful according to two contextual considerations.On the one hand, a modern political system
  would be impossible or outrageous without any form of democratic legitimacy. On the other
  hand, there is an exhaustion of the liberal project(s) and the societies featured by multicultural
  prosperity. Besides constitutional protection, defending democracy in this new context means
  balancing between cultural and other value-oriented groups in modern societies. In my paper,
  I make an attempt to examine the concept of democracy in the light of modus vivendi theory.

• Trojan horse and fig leaf: the role of populism in the global crisis of democracy and the postmodern autocracies

  30-61

  István Benedek

  Views:

  72

  It is my contention that populism could be an appropriate framework to understand and link the phenomena of global crisis of democracy and spread of postmodern autocracies. In order to substantiate this claim with the method of literature review, I have examined first the characteristics of these phenomena and then I have focused the nature of relationship between them, in particular with regard to the complex system of stability of new types of autocracies, in which, I think, populism playing a key role. Populism, understood it as an autocratic interpretation of democracy and representation, could be a particularly dangerous Trojan horse for democracy. Above all, because of its idea of a single, homogeneous and authentic people that can be genuinely represented only by populists, and because of this representative claim is a moralized form of antipluralism. In addition, populism is also an important feature of postmodern autocracies, especially of electoral autocracy. By means of populism, it is possible for these regimes to camouflage and even legitimise the autocratic trends and exercise of power, as well as the creation an uneven playing field for political contestation behind their formally multi-party elections and democratic façade. As a radical turn towards traditional forms of autocracies would be too expensive, postmodern autocrats need manipulated multi-party elections and other plebiscite techniques that could serve as quasi-democratic legitimation, as well as populism that could transform political contestation to a life-and-death struggle and, provides other important cognitive functions. Therefore, populist autocracy, as a paradigmatic type of postmodern autocracies, will remain with us for a long time, giving more and more tasks to researchers involved in them.