Postdemokratie. Tatsächlich?

The debate that has grown up around the concept of post-democracy, which was prominently brought up in the discussion by Colin Crouch, is as intensive as it is controversial. The subsuming of various phenomena under the concept of post-democracy yields not just relevant stimulus for discussion but also incoherences. The article addresses the ambivalence of this debate, taking up and critically examining the central questions and problems of the concept. Based on Crouch‘s diagnosis of a degeneration of democracies, the central question is how democratic modern democracies still are and how democratic they can be at all. A comparison of democratic ideals expressed in specific criteria and the reality in modern societies is made from the perspective of empirical democracy research. It is argued that Western democracies are in fact in the process of post-democratization and that functional causes resulting from the complexity of modern societies are also jointly responsible for this.