In times of virulent crisis discourses surrounding the stability and future viability of modern, liberal democracies, the aim of the doctoral project is to conduct a metacritical examination of contemporary theories of democracy, based on Ingolfur Blühdorn's social theory of simulative democracy, and to interpret them as symbolic-theoretical attempts at coping that theoretically process these crisis-like transformations of modern democracies. This is accompanied by reformulations of the concept of democracy that reveal crucial weaknesses in the theories to be examined, such as theoretically underexamined democratic institutions or a reflexive anti-statism. These weaknesses will be examined to see whether they are the result of theoretical premises and ideological pre-decisions.

The contemporary theories of democracy to be examined are those of Claude Lefort, the 'right-wing Lefortians' Pierre Rosanvallon, Catherine Colliot-Thélène, as well as the 'left-wing Lefortians' Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière and the theorists of 'absolute democracy' Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. They will be examined in terms of their commonalities, differences, strengths and weaknesses, focusing primarily on Lefort's powerful figure of thought of the "empty place of power", which is supposed to be constitutive of modern democracy.