It has become a kind of a commonplace to claim that liberal democracy faces severe crisis. Its sources could be found in many diverse phenomena ranging from global capitalism, economic and political inequality, mass media, decline of voter’s turnout, rise of populism and nationalism (to name just a few). This course will inquire into the sources of the contemporary crises and will also search for possible cures of the crises in the field of critical democratic theories.

Course assesment
As this course will be conducted as a workshop, i.e. it will be oriented towards discussion rather than lectures, members of the seminar are expected (when required) to present at least one paper to the group based on assigned texts; prepare for each seminar by reading the essential texts; and to attend on a regular basis (at least 70%).

Course outline (main themes discussed in the course)

1. (Our) Crisis of Democracy
GILENS, Martin a Benjamin I. PAGE. 2014. Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics. 12(03), 564-581.
MAIR, Peter. 2013. Ruling the void: the hollowing of western democracy. 1st pub. New York: Verso.
TORMEY, Simon. 2015. The end of representative politics. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

2. Democracy’s Discontent: Elitism, Audience Democracy, Plebiscitarianism
GREEN, Jeffrey E. 2010. The eyes of the people: democracy in an age of spectatorship. New York: Oxford University Press.
KÖRÖSÉNYI, András. 2005. Political Representation in Leader Democracy. Government and Opposition. 40(3), 358–378.
MANIN, Bernard. 1997. The principles of representative government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SCHUMPETER, Joseph Alois. 1976. Capitalism, socialism and democracy. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
URBINATI, Nadia. 2014. Democracy disfigured: opinion, truth, and the people. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, pp. 171-227.
WEBER, Max. 1994. Parliament and Government in Germany under a New Political Order, in Weber: Political Writings, pp. 130-272.

3. The Promise of Participation
BARBER, Benjamin. 2003. Strong democracy: participatory politics for a new age. Berkeley, University of California Press.
BOWLES, Samuel a Herbert GINTIS. 1987. Democracy and capitalism: property, community, and the contradictions of modern social thought. [Repr. in pbk.]. London: Routledge.
MACPHERSON, C. 2012. The life and times of liberal democracy. [New ed.]. Don Mills, Ont.: OUP Canada.
MILL, John Stuart. 1991. Considerations on representative government. Buffalo, N.Y: Prometheus Books.
PATEMAN, Carole. 2000. Participation and democratic theory. Reprint. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press.
SMITH, Graham. 2009. Democratic innovations: designing institutions for citizen participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

4. Deliberative Democracy and Deliberative Politics
BOHMAN, James. 2000. Public deliberation: pluralism, complexity, and democracy. 1st MIT Press paperback ed. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
DRYZEK, John S. 2010. Foundations and frontiers of deliberative governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
GUTMANN, Amy. 2004. Why deliberative democracy?. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
PARKINSON, John a Jane MANSBRIDGE (eds.). 2013. Deliberative systems: deliberative democracy at the large scale. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press.
RAWLS, John. 2005. Political liberalism. Expanded ed. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 437-490.

5. Radical Democracy and Agonism
LACLAU, Ernesto a Chantal MOUFFE. 2001. Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic politics. 2nd ed. New York: Verso.
LEFORT, Claude. 1988. Democracy and political theory. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
MOUFFE, Chantal. 2009. The democratic paradox. 1. publ., repr. London: Verso.
NORVAL, Aletta J. 2007. Aversive democracy: inheritance and originality in the democratic tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
WENMAN, Mark. 2013. Agonistic democracy: constituent power in the era of globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

More readings for each session are going to be distributed through Moodle (http://dl.cuni.cz/).