Abstract

The article looks into the critical potential, but also the limits of the current discussion on post-democracy and the crisis of democracy and proposes an examination of the concept of crisis. The thesis is that the current talk of a crisis of democracy suggests an uncritical, namely restitutive understanding of the crisis that could be appropriated for an apology of Western liberal democracy. In contrast, the text argues for a renewed focus on the self-reflexive and critical potential of the term. Based on a pragmatist concept of problem and action, “crisis” is defined as a certain kind of problem-solving problem and further determined on the basis of four criteria. The contribution this definition makes to the current debate is shown by the example of Jacques Rancière’s diagnosis of post-democracy, which can be read as a diagnosis of crisis in the defined self-reflexive and critical sense.