The renewal and realization of democracy, or indeed its democratization, has many names: true democracy, direct democracy, radical democracy, council democracy, economic democracy, grassroots democracy, and many more. In 2026, we would like to organize the BG’s annual text series under the title “Deep Democracy,” building on our previous annual text series, such as “Pluriverse of Peace” (2025), “Kin City” (2024), “Allied Grounds” (2023), and “After Extractivism” (2022), which focused on critical inquiries of the planetary polycrisis. We outline the concept below. Information on how to submit contributions can be found at the bottom.
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In 1989, the ‘end of history’ was proclaimed, and ‘Western democracy’ was celebrated as the pinnacle of civilization. Just 37 years later, the issue of the best system is back with a vengeance. Authoritarian tendencies are growing stronger in Europe and the United States. Right-wing populism reinforces the idea that democracy is not just a poorly implemented political system, but the wrong one altogether. Yet disillusionment with democracy is understandable.
The limits of democracy as we know it
Democracies are ill-equipped to cope with the planetary polycrisis – the interaction between economic, ecological, and social crises at the local, national, and global level. The contradictions between the interests of the demos and those of (fossil) capital are growing larger and more intractable. Although coal contributed to the rise of democratic forms of government, the shift to oil has increasingly undermined democratic processes. “Carbon democracies” perpetuate their economic dependencies, destroy their ecological foundations, and fail to develop political solutions to the polycrisis. Furthermore, response times to crisis shocks are often too long. A democratically elected government, on the other hand, has too short a timeframe to address long-term crises.
In democracies, feelings of powerlessness prevail over liberating feelings of co-determination, agency, and self-efficacy. As political and economic participation declines, so does the belief that democracy is an effective means of achieving a more just and egalitarian society. All too often, the formal framework of democracy seems outright undemocratic – in terms of both process and outcome. Referendums are often ignored, for example, and popular sovereignty is repeatedly undermined – frequently by politicians who prioritize ostensibly ‘higher’ interests, e.g. defined by finance and rating agencies. Thus, democracy reveals itself to be a form of governance that uses popular consent to limit demands for economic, social, and ecological justice.
In other words, the problem with democracy as we know it is not that the population lacks the political consciousness to demand a more just world. Rather, the problem is the lack of effective tools to compel the powerful to listen to and follow those demands. Does this mean we are inevitably destined to become ‘enemies of democracy,’ as advocated by right-wing populists and demagogues? There is powerful evidence for alternatives.
Why democracy, nonetheless?
Citizens of former socialist countries, such as Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia and Croatia, are dissatisfied with the introduction of ‘formal democracy’ to legitimize an authoritarian transition to a market economy. They are therefore demanding more democracy – or finally, genuine democracy. As the political systems in the ‘model countries’ of democracy (Western Europe and the U.S.) increasingly fail to deliver on their promises, their ‘model citizens’ are also demanding that formal democracy become truly democratic. Last but not least, indigenous and marginalized communities in countries such as Brazil, New Zealand, and India are demanding true democratic co-determination, including the right to refuse land grabs and expulsions.
But what exactly is the promise of genuine democracy? There are many associations with this idea, for example, the belief that we can collectively free ourselves from individual powerlessness. Another is the goal to build communal safety and solidarity networks, which are necessary in everyday life and in emergencies. Another is the project of establishing an ecologically sustainable and cooperatively designed economy, as proposed by the socialization movement. Or the related approach of democratizing labor relations to make production climate-friendly and oriented toward the common good. Another is that through democratic deliberation we can collectively understand the causes of the ecological and economic downward spiral and together find solutions. Yet another is the possibility of curbing the power of global capital by establishing a democratic counterbalance to the private sector elites and their political allies.
In short, genuine democracy is an all-purpose tool for social transformation. The most internationally renowned example of this is New Municipalism: democratic struggles at the local level based on alliances comprised of social movements, trade unions, and political parties, seeking democratic solutions to the polycrisis of capitalist societies and their increasingly authoritarian management. This approach has inspired a multitude of progressive municipal initiatives around the world. How can these initiatives become catalysts for social transformation beyond the local context?
Interconnected inquiries
As the polycrisis and its underlying causal relations and social interconnections become more complex and problematic, binary reductionism and conspiracy theories spread more quickly; they are a compensatory mechanism for inconsistencies, uncertainties, and insecurities. This hinders our ability to understand causal relations and social interconnections through collective, cooperative sense-making, thus undermining an important prerequisite for democracy.
Against this backdrop, BG | berlinergazette.de proposes “Deep Democracy” as the motto for thinking about and constructing causal relations and social interconnections, with the ‘deep’ in “Deep Democracy” an appeal to sharpen awareness and listen more closely, as suggested by Arnold Mindell, who coined the term. However, we use the term very loosely, as defined by Mindell. Like many others before us, we use the evocative term as a starting point to gain new insights into the utopia of “deep democracy” through critical interrogation.
Strategies against anti-democratic tendencies
As previously mentioned, disillusionment with the system is understandable given democracies’ shortcomings. However, we should ask ourselves the following question: Why does disillusionment with the system cause more and more people to support right-wing authoritarianism, rather than the democratization of democracy? Understanding the motivations of right-wing voters is key to developing effective contemporary anti-fascist alliance politics. The question is: What should these alliance politics look like? Moreover, we should ask: How is liberal democracy complicit in producing inequality? How can democratizing democracy prevent economic and political participation from becoming exclusive commodities?
Rethinking the energy basis of democracies
With “carbon democracies” in danger of becoming carbon autocracies – not least because the negative effects of a carbon-based society are reaching catastrophic proportions (keyword: climate crisis) – the question arises: How can this development be stopped? How can not only the status quo of carbon democracy be defended against the emerging carbon autocracy (and outright fossil fascism), but also, and more importantly, a renewable energy foundation for democracy be established? How can the democratic energy transition (and the energy transition of democracy) succeed? In what ways can democratic structures organize this process while utilizing socialist-ecological planning?
Learning from the pro-democracy protests after 1989
Between 1989 and 2011, the last cycle of pro-democracy protests included more than 300 mass mobilizations, primarily in Africa and Asia but also in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. These protests were largely a response to economic crises and the mismanagement of these crises by governments, including the rise of authoritarianism. To what extent and in which way are current pro-democracy movements related to this cycle of protests? In what ways are the conditions and dynamics fundamentally different? What lessons can we learn from this earlier cycle? What can we learn from the pro-democracy mass mobilizations in Eastern Europe since 1989 that forced governments to respond to their demands, yet still fight for genuine political and economic participation? What lessons can we apply from this failure to the project of a truly democratic socio-ecological transformation?
Democratization as decolonization of democracy
Democracy is often treated as an abstract, universal concept that must be implemented ‘from outside’ or ‘from above’ by experts. How can this misguided approach be corrected? How can democracy be democratized by developing it from local values, practices, experiences, and histories? How can the democratization of democracy be connected to its decolonization? How can progressive and decolonial democratization approaches help overcome the imperial role of democracy, i.e., its instrumentalization in the globalization of the ‘free market’? In turn, how can the imperial control of fossil energy resources as the basis of political systems of governance be overcome? To what extent can approaches such as New Municipalism and socialization help democratize the capitalist world system from the ground up?
The political agents of democratizing democracy
One of the most recent manifestations of the planetary polycrisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, has shown that autocratic-nationalist crisis management disproportionately affects the weakest and most vulnerable. How then can strengthening the democratic capacity of municipalities create safe havens for those suffering from the current polycrisis? In the process of democratizing democracy, how can we give a better voice to the impoverished, disenfranchised, and exploited, those who are usually most affected by the polycrisis, yet often neglected in democratic representation? How can we strengthen the democratic agency of those whose work is invisibilized and socially devalued, such as migrant workers and those in the field of social reproduction, without whom the system would collapse?
Information on text submissions
Anyone interested in these and related topics is invited to submit a text. This call is intended for researchers, activists, and cultural practitioners engaged in democratic and emancipatory struggles, either theoretically or practically. Texts of 1,500 words or 10,000 characters will be published under a Creative Commons license in both German and English. Submissions in both languages are accepted until March 1, June 1, September 1, or November 15, 2025, and should be sent to info (at) berlinergazette (dot) de. Individual submission deadlines can also be arranged.
Since 1999, BG | berlinergazette.de has thrived thanks to contributions from more than 2,000 authors. It is published under a Creative Commons license by a volunteer, nonpartisan team of journalists, scientists, artists, and programmers. In dialogue with our international network, we develop projects each year that address urgent topics in the form of not only text series but also conferences, exhibitions, and books. Learn more about us here: https://berlinergazette.de/about-us