A new collaborative monograph of democratic theory, The Sciences of the Democracies, was released by UCL Press on August 7. The book, in the style of a democratic manifesto, is written by a large number of co-authors in a bold attempt to expand and deepen how democracy is studied and understood. Among the authors is Tom Theuns, who shares his insights.
About the book
The study of democracy has often been limited by narrow methodological or regional perspectives. The Sciences of the Democracies, an open-access collaboratively written monograph led by Jean-Paul Gagnon and Benjamin Abrams, proposes a groundbreaking shift. Instead of relying solely on conventional models rooted in Western political thought, the book invites scholars to explore a broader spectrum of democratic knowledge.
The story of the book reflects its subject. Jean-Paul Gagnon, writing for ABC in 2021, urged scholars to gather democracy's words across languages, tracing their synonyms and histories, and interrogating how they have been used and understood. Such work, he argued, could reveal connections, values, and practices otherwise overlooked.
This proposal sparked intense debate. Critics warned that widening the frame could dilute democracy's core liberal, representative, and electoral features at a time of global threat. Others dismissed the project as endless and impractical-too vast to ever complete or yield usable results. Yet many welcomed the challenge, extending Gagnon's call beyond words and texts to include non-textual media (such as the yellow umbrellas, or Reichstag's glass dome), individuals (the ideas each of us have about democracy), groups (like China's merchant guilds), and non-human communities (bees, meerkats, jellyfish) that solve collective problems. They argued that democracy is not only spoken and written but lived, displayed, and enacted across species, cultures, and contexts.
The discussion quickly grew. Within months, dozens of essays appeared on the ECPR blog The Loop, and today the debate has generated more than a hundred contributions. Building on this momentum, Gagnon proposed to draft a book around these themes and for co-authors to interrogate, explore, add to, and sharpen the ideas within. The point in this was to try to produce a book that would bring an already vibrant discussion, with many uncertainties and debates, into one voice. This is that book.
Leiden University's contribution
Tom Theuns, Assistant Professor of Political Theory at Leiden University, was part of the Sciences of the Democracies project from the start, contributing an early article to a conversation in ECPR blog The Loop on the persistent need for democratic theory within the project. His article sparked an extensive debate on how to theorize and operationalize in- and exclusion criteria (Drake 2022, Khachaturian 2022, Krick 2022, Fiorespino 2022, Mandujano Manriquez 2022, Marquardt 2022, Sadeqi 2022, Stark et al. 2022, Valgardsson 2022). Can or should this this be settled by individuals or citizens in a participative or deliberative way, or is it necessary to appeal to experts or some epistocratic procedures?
Can you, in general lines, describe what the book is about? And what unites the authors?
'The book argues that democracy studies are too fragmented and proposes a holistic approach that integrates five sources of knowledge about democracy: individuals, groups, texts, non-textual media, and non-humans. Studying these sources across geographically and temporally diverse contexts, reveals overlooked democratic practices and ideas. Ultimately, this project hopes to lead to more inclusive, equitable, and better-founded democratic theories for scholars, policymakers, and citizens alike.'
Could you briefly explain your contribution to the book? What was your challenge/pitfall/motivation?
'My approach to the project was that of an enthusiastic skeptic. The challenges when collecting the linguistically and temporally diverse conceptions of democracy in a 'data mountain' are serious. How can we specify relevant inclusion criteria and/or criteria for identifying 'imposter concepts' marauding as democratic concepts? What is the minimal democraticity of a concept to be included in such a project? Who is to decide?'
The book emphasizes a move beyond "Western" concepts of democracy - what do you think could be the impact on society?
'The inclusive framework offered by the book allows for a more nuanced understanding of democratic practices and institutions around the world. Moving away from a Western-centric conceptualization of democracy is especially urgent now that liberal democratic practices across many so-called 'established' Western democracies seem to be failing. This diversity also extends to the books co-authors, which include experts in political science, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and philosophy. All of these perspectives on democracy are necessary to move towards an ideal we call a "Fourth Theorist" of democracy - one that accounts for the diversity, complexity, and evolution of democratic experiences globally.'
How do you see this book influencing future research or teaching about democracy?
'I think there are two major contributions. First, the book sketches out a path for decentering and decolonizing democratic theory. One of the tasks of that process is a questioning the foundational literature itself-asking when or whether to discard it, reinterpret it, or contextualize its legacy. Instead of rushing to impose new moral frameworks, the Sciences of the Democracies foregrounds the rich plurality of democratic experiences and ideas across languages, cultures and historical periods. And that plurality is so complementary to the way I think about democracy and the democratic ethos. In that sense, it is a really plural, democratic way of studying democracies past and future. The other major contribution, if the project is successful, will be an actual empirical resource of democratic 'artefacts'. One of the major limitations on our thinking and theorizing is what we know-most of my research is limited in just this way, to the European states I am familiar about, and even more narrowly to what has been said or written about those states in languages I read. The database that Sciences proposes to create has a huge potential in expanding the horizons of how we think about democracy.'
