Debating Democracy: Concepts, Histories, and Controversies

Within academia as much as in political practice, democracy remains a contested concept. This issue focuses on the practices of the contestation of the concept of democracy—the debates, controversies, and contestations of democracy in theory, practice, and in historical perspectives. Special emphasis is put on the concept of liberal democracy—i.e, the form that democracy mostly takes nowadays. The key argument is that (liberal) democracy has always been contested as a concept, and it is still contested today. The thematic issue contains a selection of articles that analyse ways and modes of debating and contesting (liberal) democracy, from the past to the present.