Democracy beyond the state in the age of cities: explaining crisis dynamics in national democracy

This chapter introduces democracy beyond the state to research on the age of cities and suggests new ways to explain dynamics of national democracy in times of crisis. Democracy beyond the state is constituted by the people of more than one state, e.g., all human beings, or by people whose politics is significantly independent of states for other reasons, e.g., the inhabitants of powerful cities. Originally constructed to capture a wide range of explanatory factors in global and international politics, this concept holds a unique capacity to register transformations of democracy in the age of cities, by highlighting politics at a global level. The concept also supplies an original explanation of the alternative futures of democracy within states in times of crisis. The theoretical analysis offered in the chapter suggests that crisis dynamics of democracy within states depend on democracy in structures at the international and sub-national political levels.