The Eclipse of Democracy – A critical approach with special reference to Covid-19

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About the book

The book ‘The Eclipse of Democracy’ is a critical approach to the study and review of democracy today with special reference to Covid-19. At the beginning, the book deals with basic understanding of the doctrine of democracy. The objective of the first chapter is to categorically discover the two issues: one, what democracy ought to be and two, what democracy had been in reality. In terms of the question as to what democracy ought to be, it is argued that democracy should be a way of life, a cultural practice and an ideology which has not been executed in practice. Thereafter, the book deals with some theoretical reasons of the decline of democracy such as lack of holistic approach, decline of political theory, omission of civil society and varied forms of democracy. The book, interestingly, deals with Covid-19 and the failure of the democratic state system. A case study with some representative states like India, USA, UK, Brazil, Canada and France has been made in order to assess their performance during the pandemic. Finally, the book makes a critical review of democracy in modern world. Apart from critical theory, the review is based on chiefly three indicators: constitution, ideology and leadership. It is seen that in most of the countries severe problems lie with the structure, content and enactment of constitution; most of the countries are running without any ideology in true sense of the term; all the countries under democracy are suffering from a serious crisis of leadership.