Post-democracy

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A society where democratic procedure is only superficially relevant.

    "It may be that we need to conceptualize democratic authorship in less unitary and more heterarchical terms and instead approach it through a diff erent model of sover-eignty and the public sphere. Maybe we should all embrace “postdemocracy”? Or should one insist that these normative criteria of legitimacy remain necessary even in view of new global arrangements, and that, in fact, they may be in a healthy tension with these arrangements?"

Example

More examples

"It may be that we need to conceptualize democratic authorship in less unitary and more heterarchical terms and instead approach it through a diff erent model of sover-eignty and the public sphere. Maybe we should all embrace “postdemocracy”? Or should one insist that these normative criteria of legitimacy remain necessary even in view of new global arrangements, and that, in fact, they may be in a healthy tension with these arrangements?"

Etymology

From post- + democracy.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.