What are the specific ways democracy adapts to different national and cultural contexts? What contributions are emerging technology making toward how democracy proceeds? When does democratic decline consolidate into authoritarianism? And what does democracy even refer to these days?
Moreover, why does democracy seem to be under such strain? Furthermore, what even is it?
This Substack also seeks to write the story of new political histories as pandemics, wars, geopolitical contests, emerging technologies, and demographic change are currently shaping them. Moreover, given the sizeable theoretical scope, the following posts, though authored by an American, will seek to escape North America, the West, and politics in the United States whenever and wherever possible. However, there will also be a time later when those loci will be squarely and exclusively our focus. Rather than supplying an answer to every problem confronting democratic governments and states of all regime types, providing means for understanding the ambitions of democratic politics is the motivation for writing this blog for general audiences of the global public.
Because the demands on democracy today are growing so numerous, it is reasonable to expect that the dynamics of more incoming challenges are perennially here to stay, as is the need for understanding political values, ideologies, and forms of statecraft with their proper theoretical and national contexts.
So, over time we will also pay attention to climate degradation, global pandemics, authoritarianism, and geopolitical contests to prepare democracy's defenders against the impacts of its decline globally, as well as for some of its most significant threats from within.
Accordingly, this blog draws from politics, journalism, political philosophy, economics, development theory, public administration, and comparative politics, as well as the study of health and environmental governance, international security, climate, and planetary sciences, policy studies, political economy, and sociology (especially economic and political sociology) to adapt to all of the theoretical, historical, and pragmatic edges of democratic governance in the twenty-first century.
Enfolding this substack blog alongside current developments should help readers become better students and analysts of politics and, more importantly, better participants in them. Nevertheless, first, we must construct a means for considering all that democracy contends with before forming ideas about how it should change.
Welcome to DEMOS:
A Substack by @Lamontllier