It is noted that at present, Ukraine, due to the actualization of the search for a future path in the conditions of uncertainty of the existential situation, has once again found itself in a state of asking “Quo Vadis?”, burdened by the fact that the hybrid open aggression from the neighboring country and the necessity of responses to it are destroying the democratic vector of the country’s development. It is noted that “democracy has always been a spectacle of turbulence and disputes,” and democracy has never been interpreted unambiguously. Therefore, the publication aims to analyze the variable representation of democracy in the context of the challenges of the new turbulent social space.

It is stated that, as a rule, democracy is understood as a specific normative analytical entity, which is an abstract construction assembled from a number of axiomatic standards: citizens; a set of laws or socio-political norms that uphold their rights, protect them from injustice and foster a civic conviction about the imperativeness of fulfilling duties; a balance of parts of three basic elements – competition, cooperation, and participation. Thus, democracy as a phenomenon is a certain configuration of the system of government. We recognize it as more attractive than others, but one that involves variability of forms and models and political regime. The variability of modern democracy lies in its ability to change depending on the conditions in which it exists and the challenges that have arisen before it. We can predict that variability provides a certain flexibility in adapting democratic values to the challenges of the new turbulent social space, such as globalization, digitalization, and civil and social passivity.

As for Ukraine’s political regime, it is currently complicated to attribute to the already established forms or models of democracy. As a result, researchers propose those “non-classical” models of democracy that contain contradictory features and demonstrate a synthesis of democratic and non-democratic components, which ultimately becomes a model of Ukrainian democracy like “democracy with defects”.

Keywords: philosophy of law, variability of democracy, forms of democracy, models of democracy, democracy with adjectives, patronal democracy, wild democracy.

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