Rethinking Democracy in an Age of Instrumentalism and Adversity: The Political Future of Contemporary Political Systems

Abstract

In contrast to the optimism of the early 1990s, when some observers heralded an ‘end of history' that would definitively seal the victory of liberal democracy across the world, a realistic assessment of the state of democracy today must admit that democratic regimes are faced with numerous challenges that threaten to undermine their very legitimacy (Kristi et al., 2007:1).Today, citizens in democracies are increasingly disillusioned with their political leaders and institutions. In its 2016 report, Freedom House writes that whatever the underlying strength of their institutions, leading democracies betrayed a worrying lack of self-confidence and conviction during 2015.The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the major challenges that confront political systems in their struggle to become democratic or to consolidate democracy, as the case may be, in the 21^st century and to ascertain the basis of optimism or pessimism about the future of democracy. It proposes a theoretical framework based on two assumptions about threats to democracy. The first is that democracy is increasingly being used and considered in instrumental terms. The second, which is a derivative of the first, is that of the emergence of an adversary political culture which emphasizes the ‘self' against the ‘other'. These variables are not exclusive but are additional contributions to existing literature.