Kraj liberalne demokracije kakvu smo poznavali?
The End of Liberal Democracy as We have Known it?

Summary/Abstract: The theoretical fault-lines in liberal democratic theory have always been located in at least two im portant sites: that of process or procedure, and that of outcome. As to the former, the problem has been that of trying to ensure that the »will of the people« - or at least of the relevant people, the eligible voters - gets to be expressed through meaningful, practical mechanisms. A ccording to the consensus shared by most mainstream liberal democratic theorists of the recent past, elections to representative bodies and subsequent votes by the winners of these elections are such mechanisms. But of course at every turn we constantly find instances of elected governments thwarting the majority views of the same body of individuals by which they were originally elected. Liberal democratic theory says that, as long as the appropriate procedures for manifesting the majority (or, in som e instances, m ere plurality) will of the people concerning who is to represent them were followed, then the representatives are justified in voting against the apparent will of the people. But this is a clear practical contradiction. As for the the question of outcome, here recent liberal dem ocratic theory has dug an even deeper hole for itself by abandoning the notion of a common good, to which at least some earlier theorists in this tradition still subscribed. Liberal democratic theory has ultim ately denied itself any critical function with respect to outeom es. Instead, it is forced to ratify every outcome, however clearly misguided or even tragic it may be, as long as it is the produet of the accepted authoritative set of procedures and institutions. Surely the new theoretical direetion will need to come to grips with ali the elements mostly absent from the Rawlsian approach and from the vvritings of most of Rawls’ liberal democratic fellow travelers: power, violence, domination, ideology, decision, interpretation, political expression, revolution, history, economy, biopolitics. New models for social and political philosophy are desperatcly needed!

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