28Received 01.04.2024. Revised 30.04.2024. Accepted 31.05.2024.
Abstract. This article analyzes one of the current problems of modern politics and political science known as “the crisis of democracy”. The methodology of the study is based on system approach where a democratic political system is presented as a regulating system with feedback and inner stabilization contour. Under the system approach, the “crisis of democracy” is associated with dysfunction of political institutions of representative democracy that enable operation of the feedback channel – institution of elections and institution of political parties. The dysfunction of the feedback channel leads to problems with human resources and functional quality of the bodies of state power. The essence of these problems is that decisions taken by the authorities may not fully meet the needs and challenges of the dynamically changing social environment. In this context, the modern “crisis of democracy” can be viewed as a crisis of regulation of the social environment by the state authorities, which is caused by the crisis of legitimacy and effectiveness of decisions made by the authorities. The crisis of efficiency stems from a dysfunction of the highest bodies of state power, which are unable to make timely decisions and provide adequate responses to changes in the economic and political situation, international and domestic events. The crisis of efficiency leads to a decrease in the level of trust in political elites, political parties, the president and the government, which further triggers crises of political participation and representation and spirals into a crisis of legitimacy as involvement of citizens in the decision-making process. The key factor of the modern “crisis of democracy” is that under the conditions of post-industrial civilizational transit, political systems of the modern democratic states do not respond adequately to the transformation of the social environment into socio-informational environment, where social and info-communication processes are inextricably intertwined. The study shows that currently we are facing the “crisis of democracy” of transformational type, which is meant to stimulate the development and improvement of democratic political and state institutions and orders based on their adaptation to the new socio-informational environment.
Keywords: crisis of democracy, system approach, dysfunction of institutions, post-industrial transit, socio-informational environment
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