Abstract

This paper examines two reasons for the increasing weakness of democracy in contemporary societies and shows that both are related to the withering of traditional collective identities and memories. The first reason is the contradiction between the long term dimension of work and life temporality in industrial societies, on one side, and the short term dimension of work and life temporality in contemporary societies, on the other side. The long term temporality has been the cradle of modern democratic parties and movements, producers of collective identity, memory and visions for the future. The contemporary short term temporality weakens these identities, memories and projects and prevents the birth of new ones. The second reason is the increasing power of opinion polls and television on political praxis. As a result politics is becoming more and more similar to a show than to a discourse. The paper examines also the opportunities for regenerating democracy in the perspective of the European integration.