The democratic age -- A brief history of human liberty -- The twisted path -- Illiberal democracy -- The Islamic exception -- Too much of a good thing -- The death of authority -- The way out -- The 51st state.

Our sense in editing this book is that the years since 2014 have shown that, however unpalatable, incoherent, and internally contradictory illiberal democracy may be, it is a political choice that is available at the ballot box in many countries. As critical scholars committed to democracy we have an obligation to understand its socio-historical construction, its emotional appeal, and its rhetorical force, to more effectively combat it. Ultimately, we believe that the difficulty many have had of admitting (...) the political efficacy of illiberal democracy as a term is due to an underlying crisis within liberalism itself: this is the fissured terrain that the phenomenon exploits. Examining illiberalism, liberalism, or democracy as static concepts is just as barren an approach as examining them in one country in isolation from their interactions with others. It is above all to the dynamic, comparative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of liberalism and its alternatives that this collection aims to contribute. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that democracy today faces unprecedented challenges. Populism has pushed governments in new and surprising constitutional directions. Analysing the constitutional system of illiberal democracies and illiberal phenomena in 'mature democracies' that are justified in the name of 'the will of the people', this book explains that this drift to mild despotism is not authoritarianism, but an abuse of constitutionalism. Illiberal governments claim that they are as democratic and constitutional as any other. They also (...) claim that they are more popular and therefore more genuine because their rule is based on conservative, plebeian and 'patriotic' constitutional and rule of law values rather than the values liberals espouse. However, this book shows that these claims are deeply deceptive - an abuse of constitutionalism and the rule of law, not a different conception of these ideas. (shrink)

RESUMEN La crisis de legitimidad de las democracias representativas y del proyecto de globalización económica ha colocado en el centro del debate público la capacidad de ciertos grupos intelectuales, tradicionales o emergentes, para intervenir en la esfera pública y normalizar o alterar el horizonte establecido de posibilidades politicas y económicas. La popularización de conceptos como "posverdad" guarda relación con una transformación del papel que se había atribuido históricamente a los expertos e intelectuales en los sistemas democráticos y la aparición de (...) nuevas figuras capaces de movilizar la sensibilidad colectiva. En este contexto se está produciendo una intensificación de la recepción de la obra de Antonio Gramsci como fuente de utilidades analíticas. Este artículo propone, precisamente, una revisión de la noción de "intelectual orgánico" como una herramienta esclarecedora para las tareas contemporáneas de la filosofía política. ABSTRACT The crisis of legitimacy of representative democracies and the economic globalization project has placed the power of certain intellectual groups, traditional or emerging, to intervene in the public sphere and legitimize or transform the current political and economic paradigm at the center of public debate. The popularization of concepts such as "post-truth" is related to a transformation of the role that had been historically attributed to experts and intellectuals in democratic systems and the appearance of new figures capable of mobilizing collective sensitivity. In this context, an intensification of the reception of the work of Antonio Gramsci is taking place, as a source of analytical utilities. This article proposes a revision of the notion of "organic intellectual" as an illuminating tool for the contemporary tasks of political philosophy. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2, Page 202-220, Summer 2022.

Around the world, many liberal democracies are facing in recent years serious challenges and threats emanating inter alia from the rise of political populism. Such challenges and threats are feeding an almost existential discourse about the crisis of democracy, and recent legal and political developments in Israel aimed at weakening the power of the Supreme Court and other rule of law institutions have also been described in such terms. This Article primarily intends to explore the relevance of the discourse (...) surrounding the decline of liberal democracy, and its possible relevance for Israeli democracy, by examining the principal similarities and differences between specific legislative and administrative measures recently taken or contemplated in Israel and in two Central European states: Poland and Hungary. We focus on three sets of illiberal measures adopted or contemplated in Hungary, Poland, and Israel: (i) measures directed at limiting the power of the judiciary; (ii) measures intended to restrict the operation of civil society organizations; and (iii) measures directed at curbing dissent to governmental policies and at influencing the discourse in the media and academia. Although Israeli democratic institutions still retain much of their independence and vitality, we nonetheless find some degree of similarity between measures taken or contemplated by Hungary, Poland, and Israel, despite the many differences between their legal systems, historical contexts, political cultures, and the distinct stages of backsliding they seem to experience. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A new ‘political philosophy’ is indispensable to the ‘post-Corona world,’ and this paper tries to analyze the future of ‘liberal democracy’ in it. It shows that ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that has begun before, but the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic,’ as a setback for it, strongly encourages that crisis. ‘Liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed by ‘political philosophers’ to go together, are now becoming decoupled, and the ‘liberal values’ of ‘democracy’ are eroding. (...) To find why and how, this paper analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ and the evils and propensities of ‘democracy’ that bring about further erosions of ‘liberal values.’ There may be difficult trade-offs to be made between ‘liberal’ and ‘authoritarian’ ‘values’ - and, after the experience of ‘Coronavirus,’ this paper shows the ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy’ may become stronger. -/- KEYWORDS: democracy, liberalism, liberal democracy, illiberal democracy, the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. -/- EXTENDED ABSTRACT For almost a century in West, ‘democracy’ has meant ‘liberal democracy’-a political system marked not only by ‘free and fair elections,’ but also by ‘liberal values.’ ‘Liberalism’ applied to the problem of the limits of the criminal law would require commitment to the presumption in favor of ‘liberty.’ If the word ‘liberal’ is to have any utility in this context, it should refer to one who has so powerful a commitment to ‘liberty’ that she is motivated to limit the number of acknowledged liberty-limiting or coercion-legitimizing principles as narrowly as possible. So, she only believes in ‘harm-principle’ as the morally relevant reason for criminal prohibitions. ‘Offense principle’ and ‘paternalistic’ and ‘moralistic’ considerations, when introduced as support for penal legislation, have no weight at all. So, it means ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-regarding vs. other-regarding actions distinction’ based on which the human is the owner of her mind and body and everything consenting adults do is beyond the realm of morality and law. It leads to ‘individual’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties’ of ‘speech,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘property’ and ‘collective’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties of assembly,’ ‘civil society,’ ‘political pluralism,’ ‘democratic institutions,’ and ‘non-governmental organizations.’ ‘Liberalism’ also believes in ‘equality of conditions, ‘equal and free participatory rights in political decision making,’ and ‘collective self-governance.’ It also believes in the ‘rule of law,’ a ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘checks and balances.’ However, even under fair and free elections, the elected leaders can be ‘populists,’ ‘ultra-nationalists,’ ‘racists,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘authoritarians’ who do not respect ‘inviolable basic rights and liberties,’ and suppress ‘minorities.’ Democratically elected leaders can routinely ignore constitutional limits on their power and deprive their citizens of ‘basic rights and liberties.’ The two strands of ‘liberal democracy’ have been coming apart in the world, and the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ have been fraying and eroding even before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ Even before the Coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of ‘liberal democracy.’ In particular, there has been a debate about whether ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled. This paper shows ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that had begun before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ It also analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘liberalism,’ and ‘democracy’ and shows that Covid-19 is a setback for ‘liberal democracy.’ What is striking about the current moment is that many of the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ are so far holding up under immense pressure. ‘Illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many countries. This model of ‘illiberal democracy,’ in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights and liberties are curtailed, may emerge stronger from this new crisis. In that sense, the ‘pandemic’ may become a challenge not only to ‘democracy’ as such but also to ‘liberal democracy’ in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. ‘Authoritarian’ procedures may succeed in mitigating the spread of the ‘Coronavirus,’ but the world now faces another problem: that when the virus recedes, many ‘liberal democracies’ will be far less ‘liberal’ or ‘democratic’ than they were before. In times of crisis, ‘liberal values’ have been ignored temporarily in the name of executive power. However, the ‘temporary’ can become ‘permanent.’ In addition, if citizens lose their faith in the legitimacy of ‘liberal democracy’ as the best form of government, and think ‘liberal democracy’ cannot function effectively during a crisis, and ‘authoritarian regimes’ manage the crisis more decisively, the world will slide towards ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy,’ and many ‘liberal democracies’ will be at grave risk of failure. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security - and, after the experience of Covid-19, many citizens may choose security. (shrink)

As illiberal and authoritarian trends are on the rise--both in fragile and seemingly robust democracies--there is growing concern about the longevity of liberalism and democracy. The purpose of this volume is to draw on the analytical resources of various disciplines and public policy approaches to reflect on the current standing of liberal democracy. Leading social scientists from different disciplinary backgrounds aim to examine the ideological and structural roots of the current crisis of liberal democracies, in the West (...) and beyond, conceptually and empirically. The volume is divided into two main parts: Part I explores tensions between liberalism and democracy in a longer-term, historical perspective to explain immanent vulnerabilities of liberal democracy. Authors examine the conceptual foundations of Western liberal democracy that have shaped its standing in the contemporary world. What lies at the core of illiberal tendencies? Part II explores case studies from the North Atlantic, Eastern Europe, Turkey, India, Japan, and Brazil, raising questions whether democratic crises, manifested in the rise of populist movements in and beyond the Western context, differ in kind or only in degree. How can we explain the current popular appeal of authoritarian governments and illiberal ideas? The Emergence of Illiberalism will be of great interest to teachers and students of politics, sociology, political theory and comparative government. (shrink)

The digital space has created a new form of public space: one which provides a dangerous blending of public protest, mob justice, and acquiescence. It offers transformative beliefs a voice while mob justice encourages sanctions against (and the erasure of) detractors. This article argues that the digital is not antithetical to the public sphere but has instead generated a ‘false public.’ It argues that hyperliberal illiberalism acts as a form of social control that triggers a Spiral of Silence, an intolerance (...) of opposing ideologies and a fracturing of the public sphere into macro- and micropublics. This article argues for a return to both free expression and meaningful debate which are fundamental to the proper exercise of democracy. (shrink)

Public professionals do not only serve their clients but also – by doing so – the public at large. The state often has a direct grip on their work, through financing, regulation or otherwise. This leads to a deeply felt conflict in contexts where authoritarian, illiberal leadership is widespread. Public professionals then face a moral dilemma: should they resist illiberal pressures by the state, or continue to obey their states? The paper's main question is how this practical dilemma (...) for public professionals should be interpreted. First, it presents a framework to interpret the professional situation, characterising it as a fiduciary relation, which we can understand through the lens of Thomas Hobbes's theory of authorisation/representation. On this theoretical basis, the paper discusses three competing models for understanding the public professional's predicament. The teleological model revolves around loyalty to one's clients. The conscientious professional model which is about loyalty to one's own moral convictions. The constitutional model is about loyalty to constitutional principles. The paper argues in favour of the constitutional model. Standing up against illiberal pressures is best interpreted as a matter of loyalty to the principles of constitutionality that underly the fiduciary relation between citizens and their states. (shrink)

Is “liberal socialism” an oxymoron? Not quite, but I will demonstrate here that it is a much more unstable and uncommon hybrid than scholars had previously thought and that almost all liberals should reject socialism, even in its most attractive form. More specifically, I will show that three leading varieties of liberalism—neutralist, plural-perfectionist, and deliberative-democratic—are incompatible with even a moderate form of socialism, viz., associational market socialism. My paper will also cast grave doubt on Rawls’s belief that justice as fairness (...) is consistent with liberal socialism. (shrink)

This article examines the problematic phenomenon of political naming through conceptual history. It is evident that illiberal is an ambiguous term and determining what it means is challenging, not to mention the political aspects of the name itself. We claim that naming is a political act par excellence and test our hypothesis by examining Viktor Orbán’s Băile Tuşnad speeches between 2014 and 2019 and the annual State of the Nation speeches between 2015 and 2020. We claim that even Orbán (...) has difficulties in naming his political system. Moreover, we link naming to discussions concerning democracy. In Hungary, this “illiberal” position enables a ruling party to act in accordance with a purely majoritarian form of democracy, that is, to implement legislation with very little regard to the opposition, and by concentrating power to the party and especially to its leader. (shrink)

This volume offers an up-to-date overview of the much-debated issue of how a democracy may defend itself against those who want to subvert it. The justifications, effectiveness and legal implications of militant democracy are discussed by addressing questions as: How can militant democracy measures such as party bans be justified? Why is it that some democracies ban antidemocratic parties? Does militant democracy succeed in combatting right-wing extremism? And is militant democracy evolving into an internationalized legal (...) and political concept? Bringing together experts and perspectives from political science, law and philosophy, this volume advances our understanding of the current threats to democracy, a political system once thought almost invincible. It is especially timely in the light of the rise of illiberal democracy in the EU, the increasingly authoritarian rule in Turkey, the steady shift to autocracy in Russia and the remarkable election of Trump in the US. (shrink)

The present paper discusses the radical changes witnessed in the political landscape of the world today. After 25 years of post-Cold World hopes for triumph of liberal democracy, the years between 2014 and 2016 shattered the Western World. The annexation of Crimea by Putin’s Russia came first in March 2014, then in June 2016, the Berxit of Boris Johnson followed and finally in November 1916, came the stunning victory of Donald Trump at the US presidential elections. These developments can (...) be called the illiberal turn in politics and ideology. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense (...) relationship with power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between experts and laypeople is crucial for understanding today’s world of post-truth and the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. The emergence of post-truth has been linked to various phenomena such as a flawed social and mass media ecosystem, poor citizen education, and the manipulation tactics of powerful interest groups. The paper argues that the problem is, however, more profound. The underlying issue is laypeople’s inevitable epistemic dependence on experts. The latter is part and parcel of the (...) “risk society” in which people question the scientific consensus and thus are able to manipulate the facts. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of illiberal democrats, though liberal democrats can make no use of it. The latter downplay the problem of citizens’ epistemic deficits and of the epistemic asymmetries between them. The third and fourth generations of deliberative democrats are a perfect example. The paper argues that the concepts of interactional expertise and epistemic dependence explain why understanding between experts and laypeople is impossible. The said phenomena undermine liberalism’s unrealistic assumptions concerning citizens’ decision-making competence. (shrink)

Introduction: ‘Illiberal’ is an adjective that is commonly used within contemporary legal, political, and philosophical scholarship. For example, authors might speak of ‘illiberal cultures’,1 ‘illiberal groups’,2 ‘illiberal states’,3 ‘illiberal democracies’,4 ‘illiberal beliefs’,5 and ‘illiberal practices’.6 Yet despite its widespread usage, no in-depth discussions exist of exactly what it means for someone or something to be illiberal, or might mean. This article fills this lacuna by providing a conceptual analysis of the term ‘ (...) class='Hi'>illiberal practices’, which I argue is basic in that other bearers of the property of being illiberal can be understood by reference to it. Specifically, I identify five ways in which a practice can be illiberal based on the different ways in which this term is employed within both scholarly and political discourses. The main value of this disaggregation lies in the fact that it helps to prevent confusions that arise when people use the adjective ‘illiberal’ in different ways, as is not uncommon. (shrink)

The article aims to investigate the problematic relationship between populism and democracy by comparing the conceptions of ‘the people’ and popular sovereignty which they presuppose. In the first two sections, the populist and the democratic ‘peoples’ are reconstructed, and the unbridgeable gap dividing them is highlighted. The discussion of the democratic people requires a concise analysis of the main contemporary democratic frameworks, including deliberative democracy, ‘neo-Roman’ republicanism, agonistic democracy. The article works out the implications of the incompatibility (...) between the two ‘sovereign peoples’ identified, and concludes that such an incompatibility undercuts the kinship of populism and democracy. While populism is often said to intertwine with democracy in some way, the article argues that it significantly departs from democratic theory and practice, and belongs to a distinct conceptual space. It cannot be made to overlap with ‘illiberal democracy’, a ‘democratic myth’, a crude electoral majoritarianism, nor does it amount to hiding undemocratic policies into properly democratic justifications. The boundary dividing populism and democracy, therefore, starts unfolding at the level of the conception of the people. While democratic theory invariably assumes a people intended as simultaneously heterogeneous and united, populism conceives of the people as a moral whole, internally undifferentiated, whose homogeneity and intrinsic righteousness preclude the task of specifying what popular sovereignty ultimately means. Such specification, on the other hand, is inescapable for any democrat assuming the people as a composite unity. The last section addresses four possible objections to the argument, variously formulated by Ernesto Laclau and by scholars approaching populism from a post-Laclauian or discursive-performative perspective. (shrink)

Three recently published reports show to what extent democracy is losing ground in a global context increasingly characterized by authoritarianism and populism. The argument this articles proposes is that the deplorable state of democracies around the world is due to the neglect of substantial characteristics and sources of democracy, which are above all trust and solidarity. Democracy has three different, but interrelated sources that are built upon each other according to a lexical order. A democracy is (...) first based upon political rights, there is in an inherent liberal component to democracy. Second, a democracy requires trust among citizens and individuals that only some form of common identity is going to produce. Third, democracy is based upon strong forms of equality that are brought about by solidarity. The article comes to following conclusions: First, as the experience of Islamophobia and racism in Europe and authoritarianism in the Arab world shows, the concepts of illiberal democracy or majoritarianism currently promoted by strongmen around the globe do not stand for proper democratic political systems. Second, in our plural societies, neither thick nationalism nor strong multiculturalism does support the development of the democratic spirit. Third, Republicanism in Rousseau’s tradition is right that inequalities are the main cause undermining full democracies. A democracy requires the solidarity of the welfare state. (shrink)

The word “populism” commonly elicits images of hordes of angry townspeople with pitchforks and torches. That is the classic picture of “the mob,” bolstered by countless movie and television productions, and it is clearly based on such historical events as the English civil wars, the sans-culottes’ terror, the Bolshevik revolution, and the recent genocides in Rwanda and Burundi. Many of the leaders involved in fostering such horrors are seen as radical democrats whose successors today should also be feared. In this (...) paper, I argue that any mob takeovers of the feared sort are actually antithetical to radical democracy. This is because an authentically democratic regime, even of the most extreme type, is necessarily inconsistent with “mobocracy” or any sort of “tyranny of the majority” given its essential procedural aspects. It is argued, in fact, that leaders of legitimately democratic movements have generally been quite vapid because of the fallibilistic, plebiscitary proceduralism inherent in any authentic attempt to require government policy to reflect the “general will.” And this vapidity is argued to inhere regardless of the extent of rhetorical powers of the advocate or advocacy. (shrink)

Of the many ideological blind spots that have afflicted US and, to a lesser extent, European, perceptions and analysis of the economic, political and social milieu, none have been more debilitating than the equation of democracy with political liberalism. Thus those who attempt to derive propaganda value from such an equation are vulnerable, as the US government has found, to the rhetorical counter attack that in opposing democratically elected governments, such as that of Hamas or Hugo Chavez, they are (...) not merely being anti-democratic, but are in illiberally opposition to human rights and civil liberties also; an argument quiteindependent of the same charges, emanating more legitimately, from their support of, for example, the Masharraf regime and the Saud dictatorship.Furthermore no less an august body than the Council of Europe has drawn attention to the US government’s inhumane, humiliating, degrading and cruel treatment, including torture, of prisoners, at Guantanamo, and, seemingly even more extreme treatment of prisoners in the supposedly secret or “black” prisons operated both by the CIA, and other countries, where the torture of prisoners, often illegally or extra judicially rendered to them, has been outsourced. In light of this the paper takes up a discussion of the nature of the relationship between Liberalism, Democracy and Torture as it is germane to the current legitimation crisisfacing liberal democracies. (shrink)

This paper expands on the notion neo-illiberalism, signifying a symbiosis between neoliberal capitalism and variegated illiberal nationalisms, offering deeper reflections on its geopolitics, key drivers, and conceptual puzzles. It is argued that the West has entered an age of political illiberalization, replicating political operating logics of variegated illiberal regimes elsewhere, corroding domestic institutions and the western-dominated international liberal order, constituting an historic geopolitical shift. Although centrist parties have been variably attracted to the far right, particularly seeing center-right parties (...) reinvent themselves as nationalist challengers to the ‘globalist’ status quo, in power they mostly radicalize the neoliberal encasement of capital, transforming a range of liberal-democratic institutions, procedures, and rights into illiberal political fortifications. Neoliberalism’s illiberal mutation is being realized amidst the intersections of rampant financial offshoring and digitization defining contemporary capitalism, allowing billionaire-class factions to ‘hack’ liberal-democratic governments and operating systems. With the rollout of data-driven technologies increasingly requiring the rollback of liberal protections by design, the fusion of digitizing capitalism and illiberal nationalisms is increasingly escaping accepted notions of liberalism. (shrink)

Of the many ideological blind spots that have afflicted political perceptions and analysis, none has been more debilitating than the equation of democracy with liberalism. Thus those who attempt to derive propaganda value from such an equation are vulnerable, as the US government has found, to the rhetorical counter attack that in opposing democratically elected governments, such as that of Hamas or Hugo Chavez, they are not merely being anti-democratic, but are in illiberal opposition to human rights and (...) civil liberties also; an argument quite independent of the same charges emanating from their support of, for example, the governments of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore The Council of Europe has drawn attention to the US government’s inhumane, humiliating, degrading and cruel treatment, including torture, of prisoners, at Guantanamo, and the torture of prisoners in the supposedly secret or “black” prisons operated both by the CIA, and other countries, where the torture of prisoners, often illegally or extra judicially rendered to them, has been outsourced. In light of this the paper takes up a discussion of the nature of the relationship between Liberalism, Democracy and Torture as it is germane to the current legitimation crisis facing supposedly liberal democracies. (shrink)

Today political theorists and the public generally often associate descriptive representation with democracy. However, in Victorian Britain supporters of descriptive representation tended to be arrayed against democracy. The impression that democracy was incompatible with descriptive representation and a set of related values, primary among which was deliberation, formed one of the great obstacles which democratic theory faced in this period. These values belonged to a traditional theory of representation which held that Parliament ought to be a mirror (...) of the nation in its diversity and which judged democracy, in contrast, to be an illiberal mode of regulating the franchise because it risked handing the representation wholly to one part or class within society. In response to this school of thought, democratic theory developed two conflicting responses: first, that democracy could accommodate social and ideological diversity; second, that democracy was irreconcilable with the goal of mirroring diversity, but that nevertheless democracy had to be preferred on grounds of fairness and non-arbitrariness. (shrink)

This paper brings a fresh, epistemic perspective to bear on prominent Confucian philosophers’ arguments for a hybrid Deweyan-Confucian democracy, or for an illiberal democracy with “Confucian characteristics.” Reconstructing principles for epistemic elitism and paternalism from the pre-Qin 秦 Confucian thought that inspires these advocates for Confucian democracy, it finds two major problems with their proposals. For those who abandon or modify this epistemic elitism and paternalism in accordance with , the result is a philosophical syncretism that (...) is either unconvincingly Confucian or unconvincingly Deweyan. For those who retain it in accordance with , the result is a democratic proposal that will lack legitimacy in increasingly pluralistic East Asian societies. In the end, there is a need for thinking that appropriately synthesizes Eastern and Western philosophies in a politically changing East Asia, but it would benefit from being less “Confucian.”. (shrink)

Many in the human rights community have expressed concern about the illiberal religious political system found in Iran today. However, Iran is not unique in its illiberal religious nationalism. Some contemporary liberal democracies in the West also have a history of illiberal religious nationalism. The English and later the British discriminated against Catholics in various ways. The Irish also have a history of discrimination against Protestants and inequality towards women which was based on a deep seated (...) class='Hi'>illiberal Catholic nationalism. In all of these cases moderation and liberalization occurred over time. An interesting question is whether moderation over time might be repeated outside of Europe, especially in religiously based nations in the Middle East.When looking especially at the evolution of Ireland we notice that: economic prosperity spread throughout the population, the perception of a threat from the United Kingdom declined, European norms were spread within Ireland, and there were scandals within the Catholic Church. All these factors diminished the power of Irish illiberal Catholicism over time. If the external threats to Iran were removed and economic prosperity was to spread, as corruption and scandals came to light, we might expect that Iran may begin to moderate its political system.The goal of this essay is to analyze what conditions are conducive for the gradual transformation from an illiberal, religiously defined nation-state to a more moderate, democratic one by examining Iran and Ireland. This article suggests that the evolution of religiously based political systems can lead to more democratic political systems which are more cooperative with other countries and are less supportive of violence and terrorism. (shrink)

One of the influential contributions to criminalisation theories is Duff’s work on public wrongs, which offers a thin master principle of criminalisation, proposing that we have a reason to criminalise a type of conduct if it constitutes a public wrong; one that violates a polity’s civil order and forms part of that polity’s proper business. The nature of the civil order, the scope of its proper business, and the distinction between the public and private realms of wrongs are context-relative to (...) each polity, structured by their legal, institutional, and informal values and ways of life. Such a context-relative view led to problematic criminalisation examples raised by Duff and his critics. This article engages more fully with the relativism of the civil order and public wrongs in non-democratic and illiberal contexts. It draws on examples such as Saudi Arabi and Iran, and Beetham’s work on the legitimation of power to argue that conceptualising the civil order as an undifferentiated whole that represents a polity’s chosen way of life overlooks the ways in which the civil order’s values and practices are shaped by relations of power and exclusion rules and processes. This, in turn, exposes the theory to the risk of mirroring and legitimising unequal relations of power and impeding efforts to change them. This is also due to the theory’s lack of proper normative guidance on the legitimacy of criminalisation. The potential commitment to – instead of a preference for – democracy and guarantees of equality and freedoms might help strengthen the theory normatively, but it is insufficient to guard against the raised problems. (shrink)

Events in recent years have underscored the dependence of the liberal international order (LIO) on the domestic fate of liberalism in countries like the United States—where, according to critics such as Mark Lilla and Francis Fukuyama, liberals have imperiled themselves through an unwise embrace of identity politics. These critics argue that identity politics undermines solidarity and empowers the illiberal right, and that it should be rejected in favor of a unifying creedal nationalism based on common liberal values. This analysis, (...) I argue, overlooks the fact that “common” creedal values have expanded in American history when their meanings were being controversially reinterpreted from identity-based perspectives. If American liberalism is to emerge from its current crisis, it will need to incorporate the claims of identity into a sense of national belonging that can resist the authoritarian, ethnoracial nationalism promoted by the LIO's enemies. The likelihood that such a process will be controversial is reason for liberal critics of identity politics to consider how the claims of identity might be an asset, not an obstacle, to revitalizing liberal democracy against its challengers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK R]]JVIEWS room for different theories and new developments. He does not try to tie up every loose end. Furthermore, he avoids the rut of the specialist by willingly and capably addressing questions of biblical exegesis, philosophy, psychology, science, and popular culture with even-handed competence. Space does not permit me to discuss his fascinating analysis of the psychology of near-death experiences or specific rejoinders to important objections (e.g., the (...) Bible depicts the dead as bodily beings, not immaterial spirits; dualism is a result of the Fall; dualism implies that the whole person does not die; at death we pass out of time, and, hence, there is no intermediate state). But I can assure you that his account is cogent and illuminating. Lenoir-Rhyne College Hickory, North Carolina PHILIP BLOSSER: The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective. Edited by KENNETH L DEUTSCH AND WALTER SOFFER. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. Pp. ix+ 304. $54.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). For Leo Strauss, the superiority of classical political philosophy over modern social science (and political theory based on social science) lies in at least four principles. First, it treats political matters as they actually appear to man qua philosopher and, in a qualified way, to the good citizen. Because Strauss claims that social science (and much post-classical political philosophy) abstracts from his canon of intelligibility, he thinks that it cannot lead to a humane, rational politics. (See "What is Political Philosophy?", in What is Political Philosophy? [Westport: Greenwood], pp. 27-28, and "Distinction between Facts and Values" in Natural Right and History [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1953], pp. 78-80.) Second, Plato and Aristotle believed that only the good man properly judges politics. This belief attracts Strauss, because it identifies virtue as the best claimant to political rule. ("What is Political Philosophy? ", pp. 36-38.) A third principle is derived immediately from this second: politics ought to be organized hierarchically. In the hierarchy, either the truly virtuous or gentlemen should rule, and those having a passive, obediential form of virtue should be the ruled. Fourth, this arrangement is rational and humane. For although the virtues of the ruler and the ruled are complementary in justice and necessary to it, still they are different and, in fact, require the stratification just mentioned. ("Classic Natural Right" in Natural Right and History, pp. 130-44.) BOOK REVIEWS 527 Because of the controversial nature of these principles and Strauss's eminence in political philosophy, one welcomes the present collection of essays by his disciples. They believe that in liberal democracies people confuse liberty with the uses to which liberty can and ought to be put. Doing so, people undermine that regime's foundations. Strauss and his disciples believe that modern natural right makes the clash between liberty and natural right inevitable, because its principal founders, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, conceived man as non-political. They conceived individuals as gaining certain advantages from governments hut as gaining no good in the exercise of politics itself. Classic natural right, by contrast, bases itself on the assumption that man is radically political. Moreover, it conceives politics as an arena for liberating, ennobling activities. Hobbes and Locke viewed the individual as independent of politics, which they placed at the low end of the range of human activity, along with everyday concerns and popular morality, rather than at the high end, as Strauss would. Thus for Strauss, liberal democracy is founded on modern principles, which are either apolitical and liberal (Locke) or apolitical and illiberal (Hobbes). Consequently, it cannot withstand the individualist and collectivist onslaughts that we have seen in this century. What, then, have Strauss's disciples to say about liberal democracy and the prospect of classic natural right in a Western world which is more or less permanently Hobbesian-Lockean? This can be answered by describing first the hook's divisions and then its diagnoses and prescriptions. In part one the contributors appraise the work of Strauss itself; in part two they define issues in liberalism ; and in part three they discuss liberalism in American political life. In the first part, Michael Platt outlines how Strauss's thought... (shrink)

The best way to divide control over children’s education between private and state authorities is unclear. This task has ethical implications that this thesis explores—in the context of a pluralist liberal democracy. In cases where authority over children’s education is granted to private groups, like ethnic or religious minorities, rights are often part of the default vocabulary adopted by politically liberal commentaries. These rights are often viewed as a shield that offers the group immunity from state interference. Some (...) class='Hi'>illiberal minority groups argue that they need to be shielded from state interference because the persistence of their cultural or religious identity depends on it. For example, the Amish community in Wisconsin argued in Wisconsin v. Yoder that the future of their community would be jeopardized if they were forced to send their children to school beyond the age of fourteen. While a rights-based approach does explain many of the variables connected with cases like these, the explanation is incomplete. I will offer two clarifications to the rights-based view. First, in the event that a minority group is shielded from state interference, it is not clear that it would be morally legitimate for the group to take over the authority of the state. I will, then, offer a plausible theory that could justify the self-governing authority of minority groups in these situations. My second clarification is that the concept of individual autonomy, often the central liberal value protected by rights, is too broad to support a zero-tolerance approach toward illiberal groups. This indicates that illiberal minority groups might still have a claim to self-governing authority even though they arguably interfere with the autonomy of their children. Some interference with minor elements of individual autonomy should arguably be tolerated in cases where the ruination or assimilation of the group’s unique culture or religion is at stake. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.2 (2006) 410-423 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Reading Our Way To Democracy? Literature and Public EthicsSimon Stow The College of William and Mary"I believe," wrote Franz Kafka, "that we should only read those books that bite and sting us. If a book we are reading does not rouse us with a blow to the head, then why read it?" 1 Almost all of us who (...) read books for a living and/or pleasure have undoubtedly experienced that most delightfully troubling of phenomena: a novel that forces us to think differently about the world and the way that we live. In recent years, literature's capacity to generate in its readers "a rigorous scrutiny of everything they believe in and live by" 2 —what Stanley Fish calls its "dialectical" potential—has drawn the attention of a number of liberal-democratic theorists, most notably Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty. By "liberal-democratic" is meant here, of course, that system of government with popular rule, regular elections, a commitment to individual rights and the rule of law; one that draws on a tradition of political thought that includes the work of John Locke, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls. Although their exact formulations of the claim differ in important ways, Nussbaum and Rorty are united in the belief that reading can enhance the practice of liberal-democracy by expanding the moral imaginations of a citizenry. Such an expansion will, they believe, promote the values of tolerance, respect for other viewpoints, and a recognition of the contingency of one's own perspective, in short, the values of civil society. Whilst there is undoubtedly something intuitively appealing about their claim, there is much that is philosophically and politically problematic about their respective formulations of it. Both seem to rest for example upon an implausible theory of the impact of literature upon its readers, and an illiberal tendency to treat reader-citizens as means and not as ends. Attempting to capture what is of value [End Page 410] whilst jettisoning what is problematic, I will briefly set out their claims; identify the difficulties within them; and offer an account of how their project might be operationalized in a way that is both more philosophically plausible and more politically consistent with liberalism. My aim will not be to offer another detailed account of the connection between literature and democracy—not least because I believe that the current accounts are overly deterministic—but rather to suggest some ways in which we might nevertheless build upon the current work to capture the potential benefits of reading for liberal-democratic societies.Although Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty hold quite different views about the proper role of literature in philosophy—Nussbaum believes that literature is merely a valuable addition to philosophical Reason traditionally conceived, whereas for the postfoundational Rorty, the literariness goes all the way down—both suggest that reading will promote two values that they regard as essential to liberal-democratic practice. Following Rorty we might label these values contingency and solidarity. 3 Contingency arises from the recognition that even one's most deeply held beliefs are always only a perspective. It is connected to civility in that it serves, Nussbaum and Rorty believe, to undermine the vehemence of individual claims. Although this claim about the partiality of individual perspectives sounds dangerously postmodern for thinker such as Nussbaum—Rorty, who calls his political philosophy "postmodernist bourgeois liberalism," 4 has no such qualms—there are limits to this insight in her thought. Nussbaum is simply concerned to show that an excessive and over-confident reliance on philosophical Reason is likely to generate an incomplete understanding of a given situation. For this reason, she suggests, "storytelling and literary imagining are not opposed to... but can provide essential ingredients in a rational argument." 5 She argues, for example, that Hard Times by Charles Dickens will alert its readers—in particular "the person brought up solely on economic texts" who "has not been encouraged to think of workers (or indeed anybody else) as fully human... (shrink)

IN 1926 IN THE RELATIVE ISOLATION of his hut in the Black Forest Martin Heidegger completed writing the first portion of his influential Being and Time. In the same year at Kenyon College, Ohio, John Dewey delivered a public set of lectures that became The Public and Its Problems. Both were published the following year in 1927. These two books are obviously quite different in topic, style, occasion, and language. Being and Time is a systematic work of fundamental ontology, while (...) The Public and Its Problems is a topical set of lectures in political theory. If we are to look for the basis of a political theory in Heidegger's work, however, we must notice the central negative significance of the concept of "the public" in his account of our everyday life. While Heidegger attacks the dictatorship of the public in contemporary affairs, Dewey in his lectures seeks to revivify the public on behalf of democracy in response to Walter Lippman's decrying its eclipse. (shrink)

The illiberal democracy is the political system where majority of citizens rule, but where is not the freedom of consciousness or where the liberal dividing of power is absent. In the modern history of Europe the best example of this political system we find in the Calvinist Republics as Geneva, Emden and Netherlands. It’s not the democracy in the contemporary meaning of this word because the notion of “citizen” is aristocratic. The citizens are the members of aristocracy (...) and patricians of towns. But in this time the citizens are the people only. This system is not liberal, because the Catholics are persecuted. The aim of this text is the presentation vision and ideology of theses Republics. It’s the mixture of sovereignty of the people-citizens with the theocratic tendency of Calvinism. In the theory of Calvin, and in the practice of theses Republics we are the tension between the “too swords”: spiritual and temporal. In the literature we are many of allusions that the theological-political thought of Jean Calvin is inspired by medieval papal theocracy. It’s theocracy with “purified” Word of God, and inspired by the fear of the “caesaropapism”. This fear was just. Every theocratic rule in the Calvinist republican regime is finished by the supremacy of temporal swords. This text present the process of change from papocaesarism to caesaropapism in every republican case. (shrink)

I claim that the revisions John Rawls made to his theory of justice—as seen in his political conception of justice as fairness in the revised edition of Political Liberalism and Justice as Fairness: A Restatement—result in him being able to secure justice for all persons even in their private lives. Thus, I defend his theory against common communitarian and feminist criticisms, viz the lack of moral community and inability to secure justice for individuals in the private domain. I demonstrate that (...) justice is secured from the categorical requirement that all associational life and moral doctrines must adhere to the constraints of justice, by (what Rawls terms) the indirect application of the first principle of justice. The implications of and necessity for this indirect application are precisely what I interrogate in this thesis. I suggest that this indirect application requires unconditional acknowledgement and internalisation of the values of liberty and equality (political values of the first principle) into all aspects of civil society. I claim that Rawls realised this necessity for the congruence between the moral powers of persons, the spheres of society, and the right and the good and, as such, developed a complementary relation between these three features. Coherence between these three aspects is essential; without coherence, citizens would have a split moral personality, the public and the non-public spheres would be in conflict, and the political values and the moral doctrines of individuals would undermine one another. The significance of this strict coherence is that it can ensure the adequate development of individuals’ capacity for citizenship during the three stages of moral development. This results in citizens being able to form bonds of civic friendship necessary for justice as reciprocity to be realised. Thus, in this thesis, I position my argument against theorists such as Nancy Rosenblum, who argue for a more relaxed congruence between political institutions and civil society, as according to her illiberal forms of associational life can help form the necessary bonds of love and care needed for mutual cooperation in a liberal society. In opposition to this, I claim that strict congruence is necessary; without it, a stable liberal society is not possible as the citizens would not be able to able to respect one another on free, equal, and mutually beneficial terms. I rely on Hochschild’s sociological evidence to demonstrate that civic friendship has not been developed, due to a lack of reciprocity, impacting the negative development of one’s sense of justice. I then illustrate how this lack of reciprocity is amplified by digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The significance of this thesis is that I claim, firstly, Rawls’s last revisions and works before his death demonstrate that justice is a collective non-comprehensive good that results by constraining individuals’ associational life and their partial comprehensive doctrines to Rawlsian demands of justice. Thus, Rawls takes seriously the feminist and communitarian critiques he received. Secondly, I claim that this interpretation of Rawls’s theory of justice cannot be conceptualised in terms of a binary presentation of the priority of the right versus the good debate and, instead, I argue for a reconceptualisation of the priority of the right versus the good as ranges on a continuum of structural relations between the right and the good. (shrink)

Europe is in the midst of a double crisis: the rise of illiberal democracies and the reshaping of the so-called “world order.” Illiberal and autocratic regimes are on the rise and the “illiberal temptation” is present even in countries with strong democratic traditions, such as in Europe. The conflict between constitutional democracies and autocratic regimes is at the heart of the current struggle for a new international order. In this context, the confidence we have in our shared (...) democratic and humanist values is in crisis. Not only is there a debate about how these values should be interpreted—which is normal—it also seems that these values are no longer widely shared. Significant segments of the public no longer take democratic principles and the rule of law for granted. As a result, the use of violence is no longer taboo, not only in international relations but also within our own societies. This crisis is unfolding on a global scale, but it has implications for the European narrative, which is about both Europe’s post-nationalist, democratic identity, and Europe’s role in the world. In this article, I begin with some comments on this narrative, with an emphasis on the specificity of European cultural diversity. I then try to situate the role of intellectuals in this context. I examine (1) the task of interpreting the current historical situation, of raising collective awareness with regard to problems that require collective action (e.g. climate change, the reduction of gender and cultural discrimination, the prevention of armed conflicts, etc.); (2) the “universalization of tradition”, that is, the hermeneutic process by which a tradition (ethical, religious, political, etc.) reinterprets itself in such a way as to make it understandable and meaningful to other traditions; (3) the impact that the practice of dialogue, as understood in the human and social sciences, should have on actual political discussion; and (4) the role that the human and social sciences have in articulating, within a meaningful discourse, the demands for greater justice and for a meaningful existence that arise in the form of collective feelings, emotions, etc. (shrink)

Recently, extremist ‘populist’ parties have succeeded in obtaining large enough democratic electoral mandates both to legally make substantive changes to the law and constitution and to legally eliminate avenues to challenge their control over the government. Extremists place committed liberal democrats in an awkward position as they work to legally revolutionize their constitutions and turn them into ‘illiberal democracies’. This article analyses political responses to this problem. It argues that the twin phenomena of legal revolution and illiberal (...) class='Hi'>democracy reveal a latent tension between the constitutional commitments to democracy and liberalism, that is, the equal chance to have one’s political goals enacted into law and individual basic rights. Political extremists make the latent tension real when they use the procedures of democratic legal change to abrogate constitutional commitments to liberalism, among other things. Although the two commitments normally coexist side by side, exceptional times raise an existential dilemma for liberal democracies: is it constitutional to democratically amend liberalism out of the constitution? After analysing the moral legitimacy of both the democratic and liberal arguments, this article concludes that liberal constitutionalism is constitutive of genuine democracy. In other words, it is unconstitutional to abrogate basic liberal commitments and it is legitimate to adopt constitutional mechanisms to guarantee liberalism – even if it means constraining democracy to do so. This article then situates ‘constrained democracy’ within the liberal current as a way to conceive of and respond to this pressing problem. It concludes by discussing four constitutional mechanisms – inspired by the German Grundgesetz – to guarantee liberalism: unambiguous lexically prior commitment to liberalism, limits on negative majorities, the eternity clause and party bans. It concludes that constrained democracy is an important constitutional guarantee of liberal democracy and that the four mechanisms, among others, are essential to enact constrained democracy. (shrink)

Recently, extremist ‘populist’ parties have succeeded in obtaining large enough democratic electoral mandates both to legally make substantive changes to the law and constitution and to legally eliminate avenues to challenge their control over the government. Extremists place committed liberal democrats in an awkward position as they work to legally revolutionize their constitutions and turn them into ‘illiberal democracies’. This article analyses political responses to this problem. It argues that the twin phenomena of legal revolution and illiberal (...) class='Hi'>democracy reveal a latent tension between the constitutional commitments to democracy and liberalism, that is, the equal chance to have one’s political goals enacted into law and individual basic rights. Political extremists make the latent tension real when they use the procedures of democratic legal change to abrogate constitutional commitments to liberalism, among other things. Although the two commitments normally coexist side by side, exceptional times raise an existential dilemma for liberal democracies: is it constitutional to democratically amend liberalism out of the constitution? After analysing the moral legitimacy of both the democratic and liberal arguments, this article concludes that liberal constitutionalism is constitutive of genuine democracy. In other words, it is unconstitutional to abrogate basic liberal commitments and it is legitimate to adopt constitutional mechanisms to guarantee liberalism – even if it means constraining democracy to do so. This article then situates ‘constrained democracy’ within the liberal current as a way to conceive of and respond to this pressing problem. It concludes by discussing four constitutional mechanisms – inspired by the German Grundgesetz – to guarantee liberalism: unambiguous lexically prior commitment to liberalism, limits on negative majorities, the eternity clause and party bans. It concludes that constrained democracy is an important constitutional guarantee of liberal democracy and that the four mechanisms, among others, are essential to enact constrained democracy. (shrink)

A review essay of key works and trends in the political thought of Central and Eastern Europe, before and after 1989. The topics examined include the nature of the 1989 velvet revolutions in the region, debates on civil society, democratization, the relationship between politics, economics, and culture, nationalism, legal reform, feminism, and “illiberal democracy.” The review essay concludes with an assessment of the most recent trends in the region.

ABSTRACT Educating in a convulsed political context demands a detailed analysis of the new circumstances of our times, especially the current democracy crisis. According to the latest reports issued by international evaluation organisations, one of the greatest challenges for democratic citizenship is the emergence and rise of authoritarianism within the framework of the so-called post-democracy, and also in the manifestations known as illiberal democracy. Moral and civic education has to respond to this challenge. With this in (...) mind, we propose revitalising a participative and deliberative democracy model, rethinking the basic values in citizens' education, redefining the relation between what is public and what is private, and empowering sensitivity and free creation in the new maker culture. (shrink)

Liberalism and political polarization: The customary classification of the ideological doctri‑ nes in democratic systems, which expanded along a left–right axis, is nowadays obsolescent and has been deconstructed. At the same time, the close and strong connection between de‑ mocracy and liberalism, on which the primary model of liberal democracy was established, has been broken in many places of the world. The emerging of illiberal democracies has made the liberal component the main criterion for the classification of contemporary (...) political systems, instead of dividing them into democratic and nondemocratic systems as before. Numerous ideological options could also be classified as being contrary to the liberal one. Liberalism has thus become important in the typologies and analyses of contemporary political systems and ideological options as the opposite to those systems on many new axes. (shrink)

In Singapore, the law holds that one person may constitute an illegal assembly. This makes each person, individually and at all times, latently assembled if not actually so. But where exactly does the permissible, non-assembled one end and the unlawful, gathered one begin? How and when does one become more than one, that is, some? For here an excess of one is not many, but rather an indeterminate some. Of what does this someness consist? This essay draws on Foucault and (...) Lacan’s discussion of the liar paradox and set theory’s concept of the “not-all” via Bateson and Kordela to make a few observations about the political subject’s constitution under illiberal democracy. (shrink)

For more than a decade now a profound rule-of-law crisis has gripped the European Union, and while the fight for the rule of law has topped not only the academic but also the judicial and political agenda, the results have been disappointingly meagre. This article argues that the main reason for that should be sought in a political strategic move of justifying the assaults on the rule of law by resorting to an “illiberal democracy.” This premeditated political narrative (...) shift has unleashed onto the political sphere and onto public discourse at large comprehensive doctrines which had hitherto been left dormant thanks to an overlapping consensus on the rule of law as a central building block of the political conception of justice à la Rawls. Once this overlapping consensus was broken, the rule of law itself lost its neutral character as a referee on the right among the many conceptions of the good, itself becoming part of the highly politicized power play for dominance among irreconcilable—liberal and illiberal—comprehensive doctrines. The overlapping consensus in the EU is thus broken, but there are no conceptual reasons inherent to the rule of law itself for which it could not be rebuilt in the future. (shrink)

Numerous articles and books focus on questions about teaching controversial issues in the classroom, and these controversial issues are on the educational agenda in many countries. The modest goal of this essay is to lay the necessary groundwork for a discussion and study of the goals for teaching controversial issues in schools, in order to examine the practicability of achieving them in the educational reality, and to study possible ways for raising such subjects in the classroom. It refines and adds (...) to the concept of “controversial issues” from a particular, timely, perspective. The rise of “fake news” and “illiberal democracy,“ including empowered illiberal subgroups in liberal democratic polities demands a reconsideration and new delineation of some of the major tenets proposed by previous scholarship. The delineation that is proposed here moves through three stages. The first stage separates and distinguishes between the controversial issues and the assertions that according to the criteria that logical positivists have coined are meaningful. The second stage proposes the main criterion for defining a topic as controversial, and this is the epistemic-rational criterion, as defined in this essay. The third delineation stage proposes seeing a subject as being controversial if it is currently relevant for social and political life. Moreover, the essay asserts that the result of the examination of these three stages is dependent upon the context – time and place – in which the educational act occurs. (shrink)

The central thesis of this article is that populism is a side effect of liberal democracy and a reliable indicator of the relationship between liberal democracy and its polar opposite ‒ illiberal majoritarianism. As long as liberal democracy prevails over illiberal majoritarianism, populism remains dormant. Populism rises and becomes conspicuous only if certain manifestations of illiberal majoritarianism or illiberal elitism reach a critical point in terms of number and impact. More exactly, populism becomes (...) active when there are too few reasonable and effective responses to the growth of illiberal majoritarianism. Illustrating the defense mechanism of compensation, the rise of populism correlates with a cluster of exaggerated or overdone reactions to actions inspired by illiberal majoritarianism. These reactions vary sharply from one society to another according to (a) the specific challenges of illiberal majoritarianism, (b) the reactivity of people who bear the liberal democratic values, and (c) the credibility enjoyed by the mainstream liberal democratic forces in that society. In brief, although illiberal majoritarianism sets off a cluster of populist reactions in any society, the rise of populism always takes distinct forms. Thus, it is confirmed the status of populism as a chameleonistic phenomenon. The argumentative thread has four main parts. Firstly, it is developed a constitutive model of liberal democracy as an ideal political system that is underpinned by the following organizing principles or attractors: inclusiveness, political equality, political participation, predominance of concurrent majority, the containment and predictability of the government power, and the enforcement of the non-aggression principle. Secondly, the attractors of liberal democracy are contrasted against the recent state of affairs in the Euro-Atlantic space to illustrate the assertion presented here that today illiberal majoritarianism tends to prevail over liberal democracy. In the third step, it is argued that the countless definitions of populism only emphasize different symptoms of the rise of populism, depending on the particular circumstances in which society evolves. Finally, it is substantiated the claim that populism and populists can and should be integrated into the democratic political system, in particular into the democratic public sphere. (shrink)

This essay diagnoses the condition of contemporary liberal democracies. It assumes that the current crisis of democracy is not the result of an external ideological threat, but it is the result of the lack of a coherent vision of democracy itself. The author recognises that the key symptom of the contemporary crisis is the decreasing involvement of citizens in public life and their growing reluctance to participate in public debate. He claims that the reason for this is the (...) increasing social polarisation. The article considers two forms of polarisation: vertical and horizontal. The first form is illustrated by Colin Crouch’s considerations, while the second one by Fareed Zakaria’s thoughts. What finds its manifestation in both cases is the phenomenon of citizens’ resignation from participation in the public debate; in the first case it is because of the lack of faith in the effectiveness of this type of opiniongiving mechanism, while in the second case it is because of the lack of recognition of other political and ideological options in society. These reflections are concluded in the postulate that the basic task facing democracy today is to maintain the public sphere as open as possible, i.e. not excluding any ideological position in advance. This kind of conclusion is illustrated with the concepts of Chantal Mouffe and Helmuth Plessner. (shrink)

Kant's political philosophy draws a distinction between 'passive' citizens who are merely protected by the law and 'active' citizens who may also contribute to it. Although the distinction between passive and active citizens is often dismissed by scholars as an 'illiberal and undemocratic' relic of eighteenth century prejudice, the distinction is found in every democracy that distinguishes between mere inhabitants -- such as tourists and guestworkers -- and enfranchised citizens. The purpose of this essay is both interpretive and (...) suggestive. First, I will argue that Kant's mature distinction between active and passive citizens follows from an institutional deficiency in the the developing state rather than the natural deficiency of passive citizens, as Kant's critics have alleged. Second, I will draw on systematic features of Kant's political thought in order to claim that the state has a duty to create the institutional conditions of universal active citizenship. (shrink)

The study of illiberal constitutions has recently generated enormous scholarly interests. Few, however, have focused on whether democracies may still embrace constitutionalism mixed with illiberal elements. This article explores mixed constitutions of South Korea and Taiwan, the two democracies with vibrant civil societies in East Asia. Three distinctive features in both constitutions have demonstrated illiberal elements, including duty clauses imposed upon citizens, directives requiring the State to enact laws to fulfill the goals of governance, and constitutional cultures (...) that exhibit high deference to political elites based on the Confucian tradition. This article further examines the impacts of such mixed constitutions on three challenging issues: managing pandemic crisis, applying artificial intelligence, and combating fake news. This article finds mixed features of illiberal and democratic constitutions in the two countries by giving their governments more space in managing urgent crises, showing higher deference to experts who are generally trusted by the public, and making compromises to individual rights for greater public good. However, this does not imply that the government is not made democratically accountable, or rights and freedoms are not asserted or valued by individuals. To the contrary, nongovernmental organizations and courts in the two countries continue to act as a counterbalancing force, challenging the government’s policies and decisions if not reasonably balanced, weakening the tendency of power concentration that has been seen in other countries where democratic backsliding or authoritarian governance is gradually revived. (shrink)

From Thomas Hobbes to Steven Pinker, it is often remarked that cultures of honor are destabilizing and especially dangerous to liberal institutions. This essay sharpens that criticism into two objections: one saying honor cultures encourage tyranny, and another accusing them of undermining rule of law. Since these concerns manifest differently in established as opposed to fledgling liberal democracies, I appeal to Western and African examples both to motivate and allay these worries. I contend that a culture of civic honor is (...) perfectly capable of offering those with soaring ambitions all the civic distinction they could hope for—including civic immortality—without tempting them to seize undemocratic levels of power. And as for rule of law and public order, an “irrationally” defiant response to the indignity of state-sanctioned oppression has often animated citizens to resist illiberal regimes despite great peril. Thus, cultures of civic honor are not only compatible with, but sometimes necessary to, founding and maintaining liberal institutions. (shrink)