Under Observation

When, and in whose interests, did the concept of liberal democracy become politically meaningful? And what is the connection between our analytic concepts and the institutional contexts and the conflicts that they purport to merely describe?

Philip Manow sketches out a conceptual history of our democratic present that is systematically interwoven with the recent developments within political institutions and the crises these have triggered. In doing so, this influential political scientist interprets the current crisis as a consequence of the epochal transformations that were ushered in in 1989/90. In a general sense, Manow reveals that our ontologies have always been historical and thus also always political. And this is particularly true of ontologies of the political.