The crisis of democracy and the “look downwards”

Abstract

Current diagnoses of a crisis of democracy in the Global North go hand in hand with a disparaging “look downwards.” Already in the nineteenth century, liberal thinkers formulated institutional precautions against the “rabble.” What is striking about the current devaluation discourse is that the return of this “look downwards” is not limited to libertarian or liberal-conservative concepts but is also present in progressive approaches. We demonstrate this for the German and Anglo-American discussion.

Keywords

• “look down”
• rabble
• democracy
• liberalism
• social democracy
• history of ideas