In four seminars, this workshop explores the hollowing out of Western democracy under neoliberalism. You will begin with Colin Crouch's Post-Democracy, which argues that democratic institutions survive formally while real decisions shift toward global firms and economic elites, alongside work on business power and how globalization redrew national politics. You will then examine how parties and citizenship have been transformed and why the mainstream left lost its working-class voters. The final two seminars turn to Peter Mair's Ruling the Void, tracing the decline of mass parties, the withdrawal of elites from popular politics and the democratic deficit of the European Union. Throughout, you will learn to diagnose how democracy can weaken even as its institutions remain in place.