2004
Volume 51, Issue 4
  • ISSN: 0165-4322
  • E-ISSN: 3050-9947

Abstract

Abstract

Since the rise of the European far right in recent decades, an academic and public debate has emerged to what extent the far right is a cause or a symptom of the degeneration of western democracies. Since then, the use of the term chaos in political rhetoric – by both left-wing and right-wing politicians – as a means to accuse opponents of disrupting the societal and political order, appears to have increased. This article critically reflects on the concepts of order and chaos in relation to the governmental forms of democracy and autocracy. It answers the question: can the democratic legal order of our society withstand the threatening chaos of nascent autocrats? It argues that this question is difficult to answer unequivocally as it is based on an apparent contradiction between order and chaos – concepts that are not easily linked to either democracy or autocracy. Furthermore, it argues that the experience of order or chaos depends on three factors: level of knowledge, perspective and interests of the person making the judgement. Therefore, it concludes that the use of the term in politics says less about the actual political order than about the speakers’ own position.

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