post-democratic

English

Alternative forms

• postdemocratic

Etymology

From post- +‎ democratic.

Pronunciation

• (This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!)

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

post-democratic (comparative more post-democratic, superlative most post-democratic)

1. Pertaining to a society where democratic procedure is only superficially relevant.
   • 2019, Anne Fuchs, “Epilogue: Presentist Dystopias or the Case for Environmental Humanities”, in Precarious Times (Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, →DOI, page 283:

     Pervasive postdemocratic attitudes and political indifference have enabled Britta Söldner and her business partner Babak Hamwi to develop a new business model. Their company Brücke (Bridge), ostensibly a therapeutic practice for patients with suicidal thoughts, is in reality just a front for an employment agency for suicide bombers.

   • 2020, Nam Lee, “Introduction”, in The Films of Bong Joon Ho (Global Film Directors), New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, →DOI, page 8:

     Bong interrogates the superficiality of the parliamentary democracy and reveals how the preexisting system of social ills and corruption has been maintained and has even intensified in postdemocratic Korean society.

   • 2022, Sebastian Garbe, “A Critique of Whiteness and Maputhusiasm in Solidarity”, in Weaving Solidarity. Decolonial Perspectives on Transnational Advocacy of and with the Mapuche (Edition Politik; 123), Bielefeld: transcript, →DOI, page 220:

     Such expressions of depoliticising solidarity can be further explained by the critical analysis of contemporary (Western) democracy as postpolitical or postdemocratic. This is because, as it seems, these statements suspend a culture of political debate and conflict in favour of questions about individual lifestyles and consumerist choices.