The Rule of Unreason. Analyzing (Anti-)Democratic Regression

Journal article

In contemporary debates about the crisis of democracy, it is often said that we are living in a time of an anti-democratic regression, and insofar as it is a phenomenon that develops within democratic systems, this is also called “democratic regression,” as Armin Schäfer and Michael Zürn (2021) do. I think this addresses a crucial dimension of the critical analysis of our present, but I also see the need for further conceptual reflection and clarification. For “regression” is a complex concept with many connotations, and its usage must be considered carefully, in particular because it is important to avoid several fallacies in the discussion about it, of which I discuss three—that of the status quo ante fixation (Section 2), that of the reduction of the concept of democracy (Section 3), and that of the misclassification of critiques of democracy (Section 4). These considerations lead to my own assessment of the causes of democratic regression (Section 5).