A Crisis of democracy (n.) erupts, in elite usage, whenever the public tries to enter the public arena, and is met with drives for conformity and control.
The Crisis of democracy (n.) is, in plain terms, a public that has stopped being apathetic and obedient; the cure prescribed is to drive it back out of politics.
The Crisis of democracy (n.) that terrifies elites has, on balance, been healthy: it made the country far more civilized than a generation before.
Crisis of democracy (n.) is what elites call it when ordinary people, with great effort, learn to think for themselves and act in politics.
Crisis of democracy (n.) was, as the Trilateral Commission saw it, an excess of democracy: the rabble organizing and pressing demands on elites who once ruled undisturbed.
Crisis of democracy (n.) is what liberal intellectuals call it when the public stops being passive and marginal.
A Crisis of democracy (n.) is the elite's name for what happens when formerly apathetic sectors of society begin to resist national policy — what those sectors themselves call democratization.
Crisis of democracy (n.) that Western elites perceived was the threat that a normally passive public might actually take part in politics.
The Crisis of democracy (n.) that the privileged have always dreaded arrives whenever ordinary people actually get into politics.
Crisis of democracy (n.) is the elite name for ordinary people organizing and entering the political arena.