Abstract: The recent years have witnessed in the Western capitalist countries the repeated “failures” of democratic politics which is regarded as institutionally superior. Therefore, we need to reexamine the nature, functions and limits of the capitalist democratic politics. The capitalist democratic politics, despite its historical progressiveness, is fundamentally the best political shell that maintains the capitalist exploitation system. From the perspective of the social structure of accumulation theory, democratic politics is nothing but one of the institutions in a specific social structure serving capital accumulation. Since the implementation of the neoliberal accumulation mode, capital, in an effort to recover its profits, has controlled national policies by means of democratic politics, resulting in its continuously weakened functions. This explains the various types of political chaos in the Western countries in recent years. Such chaos shows the predicament of the neoliberal accumulation mode in the political domain following its failure in the economic field. The future evolution of the capitalist democratic politics depends on the specific form of a new social structure of accumulation.

Key words: social structure of accumulation, democratic politics, neoliberalism, populism

摘要： 近年来，一直让西方资本主义国家引以为制度优越的民主政治屡屡陷入“失灵”的状况，这促使我们有必要重新考察并认识资本主义民主政治的本质、功能及局限。资本主义民主政治固然有其历史进步性的一面，但是从根本上，它却是维护资本主义剥削制度的最佳政治外壳，而从积累的社会结构理论来看，民主政治不过是服务于资本积累的特定社会结构当中的一种制度。自新自由主义积累模式实施以来，资本为了恢复其利润，借助民主政治的形式绑架了国家的政策，使得民主政治的功能不断被削弱，因此才出现了西方国家近些年来政治领域的种种乱局，而这些乱局不过是新自由主义积累模式在经济领域宣告失败之后又进一步在政治领域陷入困境的表现，其未来的演化方向则取决于新的积累的社会结构的具体形态。

关键词: 积累的社会结构, 民主政治, 新自由主义, 民粹主义