Post-Democracy

If you've wondered where the European Union is going, this story says it best....

‘Post democracy’ is a term coined by Colin Crouch in an excellent pamphlet for the Fabian Society and more recently here. Basically it means that with the great complication that exists in the modern world, it is only reasonable that our governance is expropriated by those with the intellectual capacity to deal it. The common mass, ignorant and stupid as they are, are not equipped to comprehend the intricacy of politics. (Prof Crouch is not an exemplar of this approach though he sympathises with it).

It is a concept that has been taken up with alacrity by many on the inside track in Brussels. European Commissioner Peter Mandelson was referring to this when in a speech in Germany he uttered the infamous words "the era of pure representative democracy is slowly coming to an end."