Radical democracy as a step at the road to democracy

Lately, it has been told increasingly about the crisis in which the democracy is going through. Due to the mentioned crisis, liberal democracies cannot satisfy the needs. The purpose of this thesis primarily is to determine and analyse the issue and study for the antidotes of radical democracy's 'deliberative' and 'agonistic' versions. The crisis that liberal democracy experiences in three dimensions as representation, participation and legitimacy was studied. Although there are participatory approaches in both of the theories, Jürgen Habermas' deliberative democracy which is for overcoming this crisis emphasises active participation of individuals in politics by effective communication. As for the agonistic democracy whose pioneers are Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, it aims to integrate diversities and identities to the system by protecting them. Agonistic democracy emphasises on the need of sustenance and existence of interference and antagonism in social life and politics. The deliberative democracy and agonistic democracy theories analysed under the title of radical democracy theories not only turn away from liberal democracy completely but also remoulded its fundamental values with its own theories. In the development and democratization (deepening) of democracy and also radical democracy theories' main arguments which aim to benefit from liberal democracy's values were examined. Besides representation and participation crisis, the concept of pluralism and identity are also vital today. In this study, on one hand the opportunities and limits of representational system were put forward to increase the mechanisms for participation, on the other hand the concepts of pluralism, diversity and identity were reviewed in terms of their importance in democratisation. Keywords: liberal democracy, legitimacy crisis, radical democracy