A Ciência Política e a Crise da Democracia

Abstract

The paper explores the connections between Political Science and democracy facing the current global crisis of democracy. At a time when it is required that Political Science take the lead in the research about the crisis of democracy, focusing on its causes and consequences, the paper developed three main and interrelated arguments. First, since that democracy was crucial for the birth, autonomy, and evolution of Political Science in Western countries, the paper argues that this favoured the development of a normative research agenda committed with democracy and its promotion. Secondly, it is argued that this research agenda largely downplayed the risk of a weakening of democracy or even the possibility of a democratic retreat in the Western democracies. Thirdly, the paper argues that the deepening of the crisis of democracy in several Western countries, until recently classified as consolidated democracies, may threaten the Political Science discipline profile developed in the West over several decades. Consequently, this fact also helps to understand the difficulty in conceiving a political science neutral and normatively uncommitted with democracy.