Combines the heated debates between post-structuralist critics and defenders of democracy to create a new theory

Are we living in post-democratic times - has democracy turned into an empty institutional shell? The upsurge of democratic revolutions and revolts in the West and the Arab world begs to differ. Does this mean there is a political alternative to existing democracy, or has it become impossible to step out of the 'democratic horizon'? Approaching these unfolding historical developments from the perspective of post-foundational democratic thought, Oliver Marchart creates a new model that reconciles both of these viewpoints.

Oliver Marchart is Professor of Sociology at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He is author of Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) and co-editor (with Simon Critchley) of Laclau: A Critical Reader (2004). He is also author of six books written in German including Beginning Anew: Hannah Arendt, Revolution and Globalisation (2005) and Techno-Colonialism: Theory and Imaginary Cartography of Culture and the Media (2004).