Is Democracy the Only “Game in Town” in Post-Truth Europe?
Is Democracy the Only “Game in Town” in Post-Truth Europe?

Author(s): Lyubomir Stefanov
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: Democracy; Representative Government; Rule of Law; Elections; Justice
Summary/Abstract: Just a decade ago democracy was the sine qua non of the EU. Combined with rule of law and market economy it stood for the quintessence of the Union. However, post-truth politics struck recently the so-called democratic Euro-Atlantic community and everything changed literally overnight. People started wondering, especially in the aftermath of the economic crisis from 2008 whether their leaders and elites are underperforming or just collaborating to become richer by stealing from the states they govern. State-capture of unseen kind became the word of the day of numerous post-truth apologetics. Populism marched relentlessly across Europe, while authoritarianism and strong non-democratic leadership suddenly looked competitive to the long-deliberating and tolerant democracy. So, the question in mind is as following: is democracy just going through a period of self-actualisation and rediscovery of its virtues or it has become redundant in the eyes of the majority of the Europeans? Through broad and general comparative analysis, the paper will attempt to contribute to the ongoing debate of what is the nature of the crisis in the representative government model of modern-day democracy across Europe. By outlining some features in the existing models, it will give a perspective to the possible developments in the near future.

• Details
• Contents