The aporia of promises of liberal democracy and the rise of authoritarian politics

ABSTRACT

In light of the current crisis of democracy, political theory faces the crucial question if the democracy in crisis can bring about a severe transformation of democracy and pave the way to replacing democracy with authoritarian government. Political theory is not only called upon to analyze the multiple processes of de-democratization but also to conceptualize the relationship between democracy and the rise of authoritarian politics. In this paper, I argue that to address these pressing questions, it is neither sufficient to solely focus on the state and state politics nor to solely focus on right-wing actors. Rather, it is necessary to address the current crises of democracy as a fundamental and comprehensive de-democratization of the state and society, which correlates with a far-reaching yet subtle de-democratization of everyday forms of living and subjectification. Furthermore, drawing on hegemony theory, I argue that the current de-democratization of the state and society along with the recent authorization of politics cannot only be viewed as having been forced upon the people. Instead, I argue that despite its anti-democratic and authoritarian character, current politics are also situated within a broader consensus. Focusing on gender and sexual politics, the paper scrutinizes how gender and sexual politics of the libertarian era of neoliberalism have contributed to a de-democratizing society, albeit in a subtle way, and by doing so the related discourses have helped to enable the current increase of authoritarian politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Theory of democracy
• hegemony theory
• crisis of democracy
• rise of authoritarian politics
• neoliberalism
• gender politics
• sexual politics

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and Erika Doucette for her edits.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Gundula Ludwig is a post-doc researcher at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies, Bremen University. Fields of interest include: political theory and history of ideas (state theory, theories on democracy and power), feminist theory, queer theory, body and biopolitics, and history of medicine.

Notes

1 This periodization of neoliberalism into a libertarian era of neoliberalism promoting primarily politics of freedom and an authoritarian era promoting primarily politics of security was developed together with Volker Woltersdorff in Ludwig and Woltersdorff (2018).

2 This periodization applies to Germany. Neoliberalism has multiple faces; its practices were and are associated with the Right, conservative political actors as well as with liberal political actors. We are currently witnessing a global rise of authoritarian politics – albeit in different versions – that clearly cannot be traced back to one single pattern of neoliberalism. However, obviously, neoliberalism leads to de-democratization no matter if it is associated with conservative or liberal politics even if the modes and forms of de-democratization differ. The rise of authoritarian politics in Germany discussed in this article is related to a libertarian version of neoliberalism that – as will be argued – has already promoted and fostered a profound anti-democratic ideal of society.