The Paradox of Democratic Regimes: Fragility and Transformability (I)

The Paradox of Democratic Regimes:
Fragility and Transformability (I)




DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2002.02.07
Rubric: THESAURUS

For citation:

Eisenstadt S.N. The Paradox of Democratic Regimes: Fragility and Transformability (I) . – Polis. Political Studies. 2002. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2002.02.07



Abstract

The major thesis of this essay, firstly published in Sociological Theory, 1998, vol. 16, No. 6, is that fragility and instability are inherent to constitutional democratic regimes, and are rooted in (1) ideological and institutional history of modern political formations, (2) the tensions between different conceptions of democracy (especially between constitutional and participatory democracy) and (3) the central aspects of the cultural and political program of modernity. The common core of these premises is the openness of the political process (particularly with regard to protest movements) and the concomitant tendency toward continual redefinition of the political realm. In the first part of the essay, published in this issue, the author investigates the crystallization of the cultural and political program of modernity, analyzes the innate antinomies and tensions proper to this program, and discusses two complementary, but also potentially contradictory conceptions of democracy - the constitutional and the participatory. The author demonstrates that both these conceptions and their institutional implications have been inherent in the very construction, crystallization, and dynamics of modern constitutional democratic regimes and are rooted in the historical-ideological background of the modern cultural and political program and the contours of the modern state.

 Full Text (электронная версия)

Content No. 2, 2002

See also:


Weber M.,
Russia's Transition to Pseudoconstitutionalism. – Polis. Political Studies. 2006. No2

Brinkman von A.,
Unauthoritative Laws (To the Psychology of Russian Executive Power) (Foreword by I.L. Belenky). – Polis. Political Studies. 2006. No1

Massing O.,
Domination. – Polis. Political Studies. 1991. No6

Aron R.,
An Essay on Liberties: A Universal and Unique Formula of Liberty Does Not Exist. – Polis. Political Studies. 1996. No1

Bruder W.,
Bureaucracy. – Polis. Political Studies. 1991. No5

 

   

Introducing an article



Polis. Political Studies
4 2003


Lapkin V.V., Pantin V.I.
Late Antiquity and Modernity: an Essay of Comparative Political Analysis 82

 The article text (электронная версия)
 

Archive

   2024      2023      2022      2021   
   2020      2019      2018      2017      2016   
   2015      2014      2013      2012      2011   
   2010      2009      2008      2007      2006   
   2005      2004      2003      2002      2001   
   2000      1999      1998      1997      1996   
   1995      1994      1993      1992      1991