*Manuscript in Spanish. English sample available.
*This is a compelling guide to rediscover our role in the future of democracy. A rigorous and timely reflection on what democracy is, what it demands of us, and what its future may yet become.

Daniel Innerarity is a professor of Political and Social Philosophy. He is an IKERBASQUE researcher at the Universidad del País Vasco; his research revolves around the governance of contemporary societies and the development of a theory of complex democracy. He is the director of the Institute of Democratic Governance. He also teaches at the European University Institute in Florence, where he holds the chair of Artificial Intelligence & Democracy. He has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Georgetown University or the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. Among other prizes, he’s been awarded Euskadi Essay Prize in 2012 for La
democracia del conocimiento and in 2019 for Política para perplejos; Espasa Essay Award in 2004 for La sociedad invisible); Miguel de Unamuno Essay Prize and National Essay Prize 2003 for La transformación política); Alpine Society of Philosophy Award 2011 for Ética de la hospitalidad; an Eugenio Trías Essay Award in 2024. In 2013, Innerarity received el Premio Príncipe de Viana by the Government of Navarra and he has been awarded 2022 National Humanities Research Award. In 2004, the French magazine Le nouvel Observateur included him as a one the 25 great thinkers of the world. He is a regular opinion contributor to El País and La Vanguardia. His work has been translated into eight languages.

AWARDS & HONOURS
* National Literature Award, 2003
* Miguel de Unamuno Essay Award, 2003
* Espasa Essay Prize, 2004 * Premio Príncipe de Viana, awarded by the Government of Navarra, 2013
* Euskadi Essay Award, 2012
* Euskadi Essay Award, 2019 * National Prize for Research in Humanities, 2022 * III Eugenio Trías Essay Award

The future of democracy does not exist. To talk about the future of democracy is to talk about something that does not exist, because what defines democracy is that it puts the future in our hands, and human beings are largely unpredictable, so what will happen to democracy? The answer is very simple: it will depend on what we do. By becoming mere spectators or victims, we deactivate the power inherent in indignation and surrender to authoritarian fatalism, which dictators, authoritarians, and false democrats are delighted with. The first lesson of democratic activism is to know that one of the mechanisms of the powerful is to make us believe that they can do more than they can.

Democracy, currently under such challenge, is one of those things whose strengthening and improvement we do not know exactly what it requires of us: indignation at its enemies or a composed confidence in its resilience? Are its ills due to the incompetence of its leaders or to the stupidity of the masses? To what extent can we trust those who claim to defend it?