The time of politics: Pathological effects of social differentiation

Abstract

On the basis of a temporal-sociological perspective, the article observes the progressive erosion of political standards of rationality. Drawing on empirical evidence from the recent world financial crisis, the paper seeks to demonstrate that western democracies are increasingly helpless when facing the challenges of rising social, political and technological complexity. By consequence, politics loses its capacity to steer social developments, instead, it is confined to reacting to events and decisions made by faster social subsystems (such as science, economy, the media). One last resort seems to be the acceleration of democratic decision-making itself. However, this strategy only leads to an experimental, decisionist and post-democratic form of politics.