Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy captures the unique blend of politics and economics, along with a particular culture and civil society, that are characteristic of liberal democracy. Commercial and economic activity have been so crucial to liberal democracy that it has often been characterized as “commercial republicanism,” and Schumpeter referred to it with justification as “bourgeois democracy.” Schumpeter’s view, which is too often characterized as simply elitist, can be situated in the realist (...) tradition, offering a helpful corrective to simplistic understandings of democracy, such as populist understandings, that are at odds with the promise of liberal democracy. Yet while Schumpeter thought that capitalism would collapse under its own contradictions, and wondered if democracy could survive without it, today global capitalism looks unstoppable. It is bourgeois democracy that looks fragile, not because of the collapse of capitalism, as Schumpeter predicted, but because of its success. Can liberal democracy surive if global capitalism undermines the middle class on which it depends? (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)

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 ‘ (...) class='Hi'>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)

Why hasn’t democracy been embraced worldwide as the best form of government? Aesthetic critics of democracy such as Carlyle and Nietzsche have argued that modern democracy, by removing the hierarchical institutions that once elevated society’s character, turns citizens into bland, mediocre souls. Joel A. Johnson now offers a rebuttal to these critics, drawing surprising inspiration from American literary classics. Addressing the question from a new perspective, Johnson takes a fresh look at the worth of liberal (...) democracy in these uncertain times and tackles head-on the thorny question of cultural development. Examining the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells, he shows that through their fiction we can gain a better appreciation of the rich detail of everyday life, making the debate relevant to contemporary discussions of liberal democracy. Johnson focuses on an issue that liberals have inadequately addressed: whether people tend to develop fully as individuals under liberal democracy when such a regime does little formally to encourage their development. He argues that, though the liberal fear of state-guided culture is well founded, it should not prevent us from evaluating liberalism’s effect on individual flourishing. By extending the debate over the worthiness of liberal democracy to include democracy’s effect on individual development, he contends that the democratic experience is much fuller than the aristocratic one and thus expands the faculties of its citizens. Critics of American democracy such as John Rawls have sought to transform it into a social or egalitarian democracy in the European style. Johnson shows that neither the debate between Rawls and his communitarian critics nor the ongoing discussion of the globalization of American values adequately addresses the fundamental critique of democratic culture advanced by the aesthetic critics. Johnson’s cogent analysis reaches out to those readers who are ready for a more comprehensive evaluation of liberal democracy, offering new insight into the relationship between the state and the individual while blazing new trails in the intersection of politics and literature. (shrink)

In the wake of 9/11 exceptionalism has gained in political leverage. Executive-centred government prevails in responses to 9/11; civil liberties have been curtailed; due process and fair trial can be ignored under particular circumstances; asylum and immigration procedures have been tightened; etc. What is at stake in these developments? In this essay I try to give an answer to this question by revisiting Franz L Neumann's concern that when fear of the enemy becomes the energetic principle of politics (...) class='Hi'>liberal democracy is impossible. Revisiting the debates in legal and political theory in which he participated supports the view that security policy, in this case responses to terrorism cannot be evaluated only on the basis of how effective they are in dealing with a threat. In addition, a more political evaluation that looks at how security policies feed back into society is needed. Security responses can intensify the institutionalization of exceptionalism based on fear of the enemy. In that case security policy becomes paradoxical. It risks undermining liberal democracy through the very means by which it intends to save it. (shrink)

The paper's aim is to tackle some significant challenges faced by democratic theory in plurinational societies. Claims to recognition challenge the assumption of a ‘people speaking in one voice’ and therefore, some basic tenets of liberal democracy. In a context where one cannot assume anymore a homogeneous demos, it is tempting to believe that there may be an independent, yet democratic, principle that may help us to solve the problem of the ‘constitution of the demos.’ Goodin argues that (...) the all-affected interests principle is in fact the best principle of inclusion in democratic decision-making. Yet I argue that the all-affected interests principle is not really useful, at least as a starting point. But if this is so, and if the picture underlying modern democratic theory is seriously undermined by claims to recognition, how are the communities to which self-rule necessarily relates to be bounded? (shrink)

As discussed by John Rawls, in a well-ordered society, a public political culture’s wide educational role bears the primary responsibility for developing reasonable individuals for the stability of a politically liberal society. Rawlsian scholars have also focused on the stability and enhancement of developed liberal democratic societies by means of those societies’ education systems. In this sense, one thing that is common to Rawlsian scholars’ and Rawls’s own understanding of the role of education appears to be (...) a concern over the stability of a politically liberal society since it is highly dependent on the character of its citizens. Also, it is usually believed that a politically liberal account of education can be implemented in a developed politically liberal society. In contrast, this study discusses the possibility of implementing a politically liberal account of education in a developing liberal society that may become a developed liberal democracy under an overlapping consensus. (shrink)

Contemporary nation‐states commonly meet all these criteria simultaneously. But historically, this complex governmental form evolved slowly and partially, with particular characteristics developing unevenly in different locales and becoming generalized over long time periods. The processes of state formation have been strongly influenced by many factors – the transition from feudalism to capitalism, changes in military technology, wars, revolutions, imitative effects, geopolitical situations, the rise of nationalism and of liberal democracy, and the experience of communism, fascism and other forms (...) of ‘exceptional regimes’ in industrialized countries. Within the defining characteristics set out above, there can be many different state variants, with contrasting institutional arrangements. Circumstances quite often arise where most defining characteristics are present but one or several features are missing or called in question – creating difficult cases where the attribution of statehood becomes problematic. (shrink)

How should we understand the familiar demand that journalists ‘be objective’? One possibility is that journalists are under an obligation to report only the facts of the matter. However, facts need to be interpreted, selected, and communicated. How can this be done objectively? This paper aims to explain the concept of journalistic objectivity in methodological terms. Specifically, I will argue that the ideal of journalistic objectivity should be recast as a commitment to John Rawls’s conception of public reason. Journalism (...) plays a vital role in the operation of all modern liberal democracies, functioning as the public watchdog, the fourth estate, or the conduit through which vital information flows to the citizenry. Journalism is, therefore, an institution that is best understood as part of the basic structure of society. In Political Liberalism, Rawls explicitly excludes media of any kind from the demands of public reason because he doesn’t think that they play a political role that is important enough to bring them under the official auspices of public reason. I will argue that overlooking the political significance of journalism is a mistake, but one that can be corrected while keeping within the spirit and most important elements of his theory. This revision will widen the scope for what counts as journalism beyond traditional outlets and forms of media but will impose the demands of public reason on anyone who intends to participate in the institution. (shrink)

Political philosophers sometimes write of liberal democracies, but which societies, if any, are liberal democracies? John Rawls says that in the public political culture of a liberal democracy, we find the principle that this society should be a fair system of cooperation between free and equal individuals. In this paper, I draw attention to how, if we grant Rawls’s definition, a society can easily be mistaken for a liberal democracy when it is (...) not. I then argue that Andrew March, Gabrielle Badano and Alasia Nuti have not given sufficient evidence for treating various European societies as Rawlsian liberal democracies. (shrink)

The present article aims to show the effects that the coalescence of liberal democracy and globalisation has on the law as a social institution. The law as a social institution is one of the key foundations for the social integration of modern society, which is why we may suggest a reasonable assumption that the role of the law in modern Western societies should be growing in significance. However, the coalescence of liberal democracy and globalisation is (...) a consequence of the evolution of modern Western civilisation and the main context of its further development that gives feedback to the very development process. The analysis of the crisis of the financial capital makes us question the previous assumption because the essence of the law as a social institution lies not in its legal regulation but in its self-regulation that should increase the society’s trust in different institutions, including the financial capital. The present research makes an attempt to answer the following questions: 1) what is the traditional role of the relationship between society and the law as a social institution? 2) what are the most important social consequences of the coalescence of liberal democracy and globalisation? 3) what is the significance of the legal culture under the circumstances of the coalescence of liberal democracy and globalisation? These questions have determined the structure of this paper. (shrink)

I argue that when conceiving or assessing normative ideas about how we should organize society into the kind of ecosystem we desire, it is unwise to completely ignore empirical conditions. I also demonstrate that when evaluating empirical difficulties attending a social system, it is also unwise to do so in total oblivion to the normative idea or objective informing the establishment of such a system. Each of these assessments I call an under informed single-level analysis. By contrast I (...) advocate a multi-level analysis (by which we evaluate both the normative and empirical dimensions of an idea or a social system) or, at the least, an informed single-level analysis (by which we evaluate either a normative idea or an empirical system with an implicit awareness of the content of the other level). I demonstrate that these models of analysis would never yield the same conclusions as an under informed single-level analysis. For my case studies I focus on the various models of analyses used in the debate about liberal majoritarian and consensus/communal democracies. (shrink)

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This timely book addresses the conflict between globalism and nationalism. It provides a liberal communitarian response to the rise of populism occurring in many democracies. The book highlights the role of communities next to that of the state and the market. It spells out the policy implications of liberal communitarianism for privacy, freedom of the press, and much else. In a persuasive argument that speaks to politics (...) today from Europe to the United States to Australia, the author offers a compelling vision of hope. Above all, the book offers a framework for dealing with moral challenges people face as they seek happiness but also to live up to their responsibilities to others and the common good. At a time when even our most basic values are up for question in policy debates riddled with populist manipulation, Amitai Etzioni’s bold book creates a new frame which introduces morals and values back into applied policy questions. These questions span the challenges of jobless growth to the unanswered questions posed by the role of artificial intelligence in a wide range of daily life tasks and decisions. While not all readers will agree with the communitarian solutions that he proposes, many will welcome an approach that is, at its core, inclusive and accepting of the increasingly global nature of all societies at the same time. It is a must read for all readers concerned about the future of Western liberal democracy. Carol Graham, Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution and College Park Professor/University of Maryland In characteristically lively, engaging, and provocative style Etzioni tackles many of the great public policy dilemmas that afflict us today. Arguing that we are trapped into a spiral of slavish consumerism, he proposes a form of liberal communitarian that, he suggests, will allow human beings to flourish in changing circumstances. Jonathan Wolff, Blavatnik Chair of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. (shrink)

In this contribution to contemporary political philosophy, Jensen aims to develop a model of civil society for deliberative democracy. In the course of developing the model, he also provides a thorough account of the meaning and use of "civil society" in contemporary scholarship as well as a critical review of rival models, including those found in the work of scholars such as John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, Michael Walzer, Benjamin Barber, and Nancy Rosenblum. Jensen's own ideal treats civil (...) society as both the context in which citizens live out their comprehensive views of the good life as well as the context in which citizens learn to be good deliberative democrats. According to his idealization, groups of citizens in civil society are actively engaged in a grand conversation about the nature of the good life. Their commitment to this conversation grounds dispositions of epistemic humility, tolerance, curiosity, and moderation. Moreover, their regard for the grand conversation explains their interest in deliberative democracy and their regard for democratic virtues, principles, and practices. Jensen is not a naive utopian, however; he argues that this ideal must be realized in stages, that it faces a variety of barriers, and that it cannot be realized without luck. (shrink)

'... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth.

J. JUDD OWEN AND JEFFREY STOUT SUGGEST THE NEED TO RETHINK OUR understanding of the normative commitments of liberal democracy in response to recent challenges from its "cultured despisers". In this essay I argue that Owen and Stout fail to redeem liberal democracy against these critics because they reject the possibility of constitutional neutrality with respect to an indeterminate plurality of religions. As a result, a religious test on citizenship is inevitable under any democratic constitution (...) expressed in their terms, and this test lays liberal democracy open to the despisers' main line of attack. As an alternative, I offer a defense of constitutional neutrality that is based on the work of Franklin I. Gamwell, who has developed a compound conception of justice for this purpose. Gamwell systematically distinguishes between formative and substantive conceptions of justice and the role they play in a theory of constitutional democracy. On Gamwell's account, a democratic constitution expressed as a formative conception of justice will be neutral with respect to all substantive moral disagreement. As such, it can be consistently affirmed by the adherents of an indeterminate plurality of religions. This account of liberal democracy avoids a religious test on citizenship and therefore can overcome the core objection raised against it by its contemporary critics. (shrink)

The essay takes the widespread complaint that societies today are deeply divided and polarized as a starting point. Affirming that there is no democracy without division, it asks what it means for conflict and disagreement to be dealt with in a respectful and civil manner. As an illustration of the main argument, the way that liberals (in the broadest sense) have engaged with populist leaders is criticized on both a strategic and normative level. An alternative to existing strategies of (...) dealing with the conflict between liberals and populist is then proposed. Finally, the article also asks under what conditions civil disobedience might be an appropriate response to authoritarian populism. (shrink)

The present article explores the inner tensions of the legal culture in consumer society as a consequence of the interaction between democracy, liberalism and market economy under globalization. The interaction between democracy and modern political thought has given rise to liberal democratic society, moral and religious pluralism, and modern law. The interplay between liberal democracy and the market (“new liberalism”) has generated the idea of “instrumental reason”, whose penetration into many realms of (...) life has transformed the structure of society and democracy itself: consumer society and a dangerous tendency of social decline prevail. Under the expansion of globalization and social decline, instrumental law may not be enough to ensure the functioning of society. Consumer society does not understand modern law and thus renders it inefficient. (shrink)

Is liberal democracy appropriate for East Asia? In this provocative book, Daniel Bell argues for morally legitimate alternatives to Western-style liberal democracy in the region. Beyond Liberal Democracy, which continues the author's influential earlier work, is divided into three parts that correspond to the three main hallmarks of liberal democracy--human rights, democracy, and capitalism. These features have been modified substantially during their transmission to East Asian societies that have been shaped by (...) nonliberal practices and values. Bell points to the dangers of implementing Western-style models and proposes alternative justifications and practices that may be more appropriate for East Asian societies. If human rights, democracy, and capitalism are to take root and produce beneficial outcomes in East Asia, Bell argues, they must be adjusted to contemporary East Asian political and economic realities and to the values of nonliberal East Asian political traditions such as Confucianism and Legalism. Local knowledge is therefore essential for realistic and morally informed contributions to debates on political reform in the region, as well as for mutual learning and enrichment of political theories. Beyond Liberal Democracy is indispensable reading for students and scholars of political theory, Asian studies, and human rights, as well as anyone concerned about China's political and economic future and how Western governments and organizations should engage with China. (shrink)

Is it a requirement of justice to democratize private companies? This question has received renewed attention in the wake of the financial crisis, as part of a larger debate about the role of companies in society. In this article, we discuss three principled arguments for workplace democracy and show that these arguments fail to establish that all workplaces ought to be democratized. We do, however, argue that republican-minded workers must have a fair opportunity to work in a democratic (...) company. Under current conditions, this means that a liberal order must actively promote workplace democracy. (shrink)

The fact of reasonable pluralism in liberal democracies threatens the stability of such societies. John Rawls proposed a solution to this problem: The different comprehensive moral doctrines endorsed by the citizens overlap on a shared political conception of justice, e.g. his justice as fairness. Optimally, accepting the political conception is for each citizen individually justified by the method of wide reflective equilibrium. If this holds, society is in full reflective equilibrium. Rawls does not in detail investigate the conditions (...) under which a full reflective equilibrium is possible or likely. This paper outlines a new strategy for addressing this open question by using the formal model of reflective equilibrium recently developed by Beisbart et al. First, it is argued that a bounded rationality perspective is appropriate which requires certain changes in the model. Second, the paper rephrases the open question about Rawlsian full reflective equilibrium in terms of the model. The question is narrowed down by focusing on the inferential connections between comprehensive doctrines and political conception. Rawls himself makes a demanding assumption about which connections are necessary for a full reflective equilibrium. Third, the paper presents a simulation study design that is focused on simplicity. The results are discussed, they fit with Rawls’s assumption. However, because of the strong idealisations, they provide a useful benchmark rather than a final answer. The paper presents suggestions for more elaborate study designs. (shrink)

This article examines the link between oligarchy and the notion of representative democracy, which for Castoriadis also implies the bureaucratisation of society. However, in an argument with and against Castoriadis, one has to decipher modern oligarchies before launching into a radical critique of the principle of representation. There is a diversity of representative democracies, and the complexity of modernity comes from a mixture of oligarchy, representation and democracy. Even though the idea of democracy has evolved, we (...) do not live under representative democracies but under liberal oligarchies. Direct democratic procedures and representative elements can sometimes be gathered in order to create new forms of political commitment. The main problem is avoiding a concentration of powers, which cannot create the conditions for the emergence of democratic institutions. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of resistance under conditions of extreme state power in liberal democracies. It examines the strategies of migrants without legal status who, when threatened with one of the most awesome powers of the liberal state—expulsion—shed their legal identity in order to escape the state’s reach. Remarkably, in doing so, they often succeed in preventing the state from exercising its sovereign powers. The article argues that liberal states are uniquely constrained in their dealing (...) with undocumented migrants. Not only are they forced to operate within the constraints of the international legal order—making repatriation contingent on the possession of identity documents—but the liberal state is also constitutionally limited in its exercise of coercion against the individual. The article concludes that it is those individuals who have the weakest claims against the liberal state that are most able to constrain its exercise of sovereignty. (shrink)

One source of tension within and between modern nation states derives from conflict between individual and cultural rights. Modern democracies have been built on ideas of individual liberty whose extensions to the rights of culturally distinctive groups to survival and acceptance can create normative and political conflict. Such tensions raise questions about the role of the state, the underlying theory legitimising liberal states, and the social aims of education. Philosophical aspects of such conflicts are explored in Kevin McDonough and (...) Walter Feinberg’s excellent volume, Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities. The philosophical issues hinge on how individuals and groups are conceived, as well as how liberty and loyalty are understood. Most of the essays address these concepts in pragmatic rather than essentialist ways, suggesting that how these issues are conceived is itself an important part of the problem, or its resolution. I conclude by suggesting that all of these doctrines are faiths, the problem being to create conditions so that they, or their elements, can be accepted or rejected reasonably in the light of their social consequences. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to depict as accurately as possible the ideological conflict between liberal democracy and an insidious present-day version of communism, namely cultural socialism. Obviously, it is not easy to describe the essential relationships between two complex phenomena that evolve nonlinearly within a hypercomplex environment. The ideological systems of liberal democracy and cultural socialism involve both objective and subjective facts, material and immaterial components, neutral and emotion-laden aspects, deliberate and unintentional behaviors, linear (...) and nonlinear effects, and planner-dependent and observer-dependent events. They affect each other and also fall under the influence of different non-political factors that characterize the Euro-Atlantic societies. In order to cope with the complexity of this research object we adopt the methodological dualism and a praxeological approach. The system of discursive liberal democracy can be seen – from a praxeological perspective – as a spontaneous order generated and maintained by three classes of attractors: the attractors of democracy (inclusion, political equality, high level of political participation, and majority rule), the attractors of liberalism (rule-governed political agency and the right to reasonable self-determination), and the attractors of public rationality (publicness, objectivity, verifiability, and revisability). Liberal democracy subsists in any society only if a sufficient number of its members reproduce the corresponding attractors in their political (and non-political) conduct. It is important to note that it is much easier to reproduce the attractors of democracy than the attractors of liberalism and rationality. Maybe because of that the socialists strive to undermine the system of liberal democracy by perverting – in the first instance – the standards of (public) rationality. One of the most important ingredient of cultural socialism is so-called "political correctness", by means of which people are prevented from expressing genuinely and politely certain beliefs or doubts in the public sphere even if they profess the standards of objectivity, verifiability, and revisability. Under the pressure of political correctness the attractors of public rationality tend to wither, the liberal dimension of the political system disappears too, and democracy becomes a sheer tyranny. Choosing a form of political organization is not a scientific, but a socio-political matter. It is not the job of social scientists to recommend or impose political goals in general and a specific political system in particular. However, inasmuch as some goals are set, social scientists can indicate the most appropriate means of meeting them. If the Euro-Atlantic societies still value liberal democracy and want to preserve it, it is important to teach them how to reproduce its attractors and to counteract the pernicious effects of cultural socialism. (shrink)

ExcerptContemporary Western societies have a peculiar relationship with their political foundations. On the one hand, after the collapse of big metaphysical narratives and the appearance of what has been called the “weak thought” of postmodernity, liberal democracies developed the idea that they were the fulfillment of multicultural “open societies,” societies that, characterized by the coexistence of different moral and religious beliefs, do not allude to any comprehensive doctrine of the good or to any public philosophical or theological-political background. On (...) the other hand, it is precisely radical relativism and the absence of foundations, or, as Richard Rorty put it, the…. (shrink)

According to Val Plumwood (1995), liberal-democracy is an authoritarian political system that protects privilege but fails to protect nature. A major obstacle, she says, is radical inequality, which has become increasingly far-reaching under liberal-democracy; an indicator of ‘the capacity of its privileged groups to distribute social goods upwards and to create rigidities which hinder the democratic correctiveness of social institutions’ (p. 134). This cautionary tale has repercussions for education, especially civics and citizenship education. To address (...) this, we explore the potential of what Gerard Delanty calls ‘cultural citizenship’ as an alternative to the disciplinary citizenship that permeates Western liberal discourse. Cultural citizenship emphasises citizenship as communication and continual learning processes, rejecting the idea of citizenship as a fixed set of cultural ideals, norms or values defined and enforced by liberal society’s legal, political and cultural institutions, including education and ‘citizenship training’. However, we contend that a critical first step, essential to democratic correctiveness, is to clear away obstacles created by the privileging of a dominant epistemic position. We conclude that Plumwood’s philosophy alongside John Dewey’s work on democracy and education provide a theoretical framework for effective democratic inquiry aimed towards interconnective, deliberative practice and corrective methodology for epistemic accountability. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Indictment Background Institutions for Distributive Justice A Non‐Capitalist Property‐Owning Democracy Economic Democracy ED Versus POD POD Modified References.

This paper subjects to critical analysis four common arguments in the sociopolitical theory literature supporting the cultural nationalist thesis that liberal democracy is viable only against the background of a single national public culture: the arguments that (1) social integration in a liberal democracy requires shared norms and beliefs (Schnapper); (2) the levels of trust that democratic politics requires can be attained only among conationals (Miller); (3) democratic deliberation requires communicational transparency, possible in turn only within (...) a shared national public culture (Miller, Barry); and (4) the economic viability of specifically industrialized liberal democracies requires a single national culture (Gellner). I argue that all four arguments fail: At best, a shared cultural nation may reduce some of the costs liberal democratic societies must incur; at worst, cultural nationalist policies ironically undermine social integration. The failure of these cultural nationalist arguments clears the way for a normative theory of liberal democracy in multinational and postnational contexts. (shrink)

This brief essay contrasts two modes of constitutional change: abusive constitutional projects that seek to erode democracy and restorative constitutional projects that aim to repair eroded democratic constitutional orders. Constitutional democracies are eroded and restored via the same mechanisms: formal processes of constitutional amendment and replacement, legislative amendment, changes to executive policies and practices (or respect for conventions), and processes of judicial decision-making. Under the right conditions, abusive uses of these mechanisms for antidemocratic ends can be reversed by (...) prodemocratic or restorative uses. The more difficult question is what kinds of political discourses are most likely to sustain successful processes of democratic rebuilding. In recent work, we have pointed to the role sometimes played by liberal democratic discourses as purported justifications for processes of abusive constitutional change: we label this the rise of “abusive constitutional borrowing.” Less well understood are the kind of discourses likely to sustain successful democratic healing or rebuilding. Often, the most popular discourse is a restorative one, which focuses on repairing damage caused by authoritarians and returning to a constitutional status quo ante. In this essay, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of restorative constitutionalism as a response to prior episodes of democratic erosion. (shrink)

Liberal democracy has been experiencing a crisis of representation over the last decade, as a disconnect has emerged from some of the foundational principles of liberalism such as personal freedom and equality. In this article, I argue that in the third part of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason we can find resources to better understand and counteract this crisis of liberal democracy. Kant gives a powerful argument to include an invisible ethical community (...) class='Hi'>under a political community, and this ethical community has to take the form of a church. Kant argues then that any political system, and so also liberal democracy, requires religion to ally citizens in a foundational way with the general principles of that system. This would commit liberal nations to having their foundational principles buoyed by religion. Towards the close of the essay, I attend to how this might impact on liberalism’s commitment to religious and ideological pluralism. (shrink)

Alessandro Ferrara’s argument in Sovereignty Across Generations takes shape within a broadly Rawlsian ‘political liberal’ framework of thought about moral underpinnings for a constitutional-democratic practice of politics. Where, exactly (I ask here), is the place within that thought for concern about occurrences in a country’s past of popular constituent power? If the country’s currently established constitutional regime is fully democratic (and is otherwise morally in order) by whatever operational measures you and I might think to apply, why should we (...) or anyone care about how or by whose authority the regime got set up and running in the first place? By Ferrara’s Rawls-inspired teaching in Sovereignty Across Generations, the answer to that question will come from a certain conception of political legitimacy. But then a potent objection comes from those who press the question of how to reconcile a democratic conception of legitimacy with a subjection of current (say) deliberative-majoritarian rule to antecedently imposed terms of constraint. Under Rawlsian and Ferrarian stimulus, I look into the possible relevance here of H.L.A. Hart’s proposition of a complementarity or fusion, in our concept of law, of an ‘internal’ with an ‘external’ perspective that those involved may adopt toward the coercive social practice in question. Underlying the Rawlsian constitutional proposition on legitimacy, I end by suggesting, is the thought that, in order for a person to live in freedom under law, that person will have to sustain simultaneously an internal attitude of bonding to their society’s own ongoing project of legality and an external attitude of critical judgemental of that project as reasonably and rationally acceptable to free and equal citizens in conditions of reasonable pluralism. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century Italy is a vast, unexplored territory in the history of modern political thought and liberal democratic theory. Apart from Mazzini, Pareto, and Mosca, the authors of this period are little read, even though their central concerns - the riddle of human liberation, progress, and liberty - are as important today as ever. This volume presents a selection of the writings of Carlo Cattaneo, one of the period's most important thinkers, as selected by an equally important personage of a (...) subsequent time, the anti-Fascist intellectual Gaetano Salvemini.Cattaneo had a profound sense of the historical contingencies underlying the quest both to understand human affairs and to realize a self-governing society. Cattaneo's ideas and framework of analysis - like those of John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville - were not shaped by a narrow intra-academic agenda but by the great social, economic, and political transformations of his time. The issues he addressed included problems of revolution, reform, and change in the passage to modernity, which extended far beyond the confines of nineteenth-century Italy.The selection of original pieces presented in this translation is preceded by an introduction by the editors, Carlo G. Lacaita and Filippo Sabetti, which guides the reader through Cattaneo's thinking and puts it in a comparative context. Ultimately, however, it is the editors' goal to let this profound Italian thinker speak for himself. (shrink)

-/- In his rich and thoughtful paper, Richard Bellamy sketches a theory of individual rights that ascribes to them an inherently democratic character that “is best captured by a republican view of liberty as non-domination, rather than the standard liberal account of liberty as non-interference.” According to this view, “rights involve an implicit appeal to democratic forms of reasoning.” That is, the only justifiable “foundation of rights must be some form of ongoing democratic decision making that allows rights to (...) be claimed under conditions of political equality.” Bellamy uses this particular model of rights to defend a somewhat unique thesis concerning the legitimacy of judicial review under a constitutional charter or bill of rights (henceforth constitutional review). Many legal theorists question whether constitutional review can ever be rendered consistent with the theoretical and practical demands of democracy. According to these theorists, democracy embodies a form of self-rule whereby the members of a society establish and exercise legitimate authority over themselves. But self-rule seems seriously compromised once constitutional review enters the picture. Instead of having the people and their elected representatives setting the basic terms of social cooperation, we have instead a small group of elite, unelected, and unaccountable judges performing this vital task. Constitutional review empowers these individuals, in constitutional review cases, to substitute their own contestable views and preferences with respect to the basic terms of social cooperation for the duly considered views and preferences of the people and those whom they have duly elected to represent them. This is something one simply cannot tolerate in a democracy. (shrink)

_Courting the Abyss_ updates the philosophy of free expression for a world that is very different from the one in which it originated. The notion that a free society should allow Klansmen, neo-Nazis, sundry extremists, and pornographers to spread their doctrines as freely as everyone else has come increasingly under fire. At the same time, in the wake of 9/11, the Right and the Left continue to wage war over the utility of an absolute vision of free speech (...) in a time of increased national security. _Courting the Abyss_ revisits the tangled history of free speech, finding resolutions to these debates hidden at the very roots of the liberal tradition. A mesmerizing account of the role of public communication in the Anglo-American world, _Courting the Abyss_ shows that liberty's earliest advocates recognized its fraternal relationship with wickedness and evil. While we understand freedom of expression to mean "anything goes," John Durham Peters asks why its advocates so often celebrate a sojourn in hell and the overcoming of suffering. He directs us to such well-known sources as the prose and poetry of John Milton and the political and philosophical theory of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., as well as lesser-known sources such as the theology of Paul of Tarsus. In various ways they all, he shows, envisioned an attitude of self-mastery or self-transcendence as a response to the inevitable dangers of free speech, a troubled legacy that continues to inform ruling norms about knowledge, ethical responsibility, and democracy today. A world of gigabytes, undiminished religious passion, and relentless scientific discovery calls for a fresh account of liberty that recognizes its risk and its splendor. Instead of celebrating noxious doctrine as proof of society's robustness, _Courting the Abyss_ invites us to rethink public communication today by looking more deeply into the unfathomable mystery of liberty and evil. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century Italy is a vast, unexplored territory in the history of modern political thought and liberal democratic theory. Apart from Mazzini, Pareto, and Mosca, the authors of this period are little read, even though their central concerns - the riddle of human liberation, progress, and liberty - are as important today as ever. This volume presents a selection of the writings of Carlo Cattaneo (1801-1869), one of the period's most important thinkers, as selected by an equally important personage of (...) a subsequent time, the anti-Fascist intellectual Gaetano Salvemini.Cattaneo had a profound sense of the historical contingencies underlying the quest both to understand human affairs and to realize a self-governing society. Cattaneo's ideas and framework of analysis - like those of John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville - were not shaped by a narrow intra-academic agenda but by the great social, economic, and political transformations of his time. The issues he addressed included problems of revolution, reform, and change in the passage to modernity, which extended far beyond the confines of nineteenth-century Italy.The selection of original pieces presented in this translation is preceded by an introduction by the editors, Carlo G. Lacaita and Filippo Sabetti, which guides the reader through Cattaneo's thinking and puts it in a comparative context. Ultimately, however, it is the editors' goal to let this profound Italian thinker speak for himself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores the development in Bolivia under president Evo Morales, through a critical postcolonial approach. From a traditional liberal perspective, this article concludes that the liberal democratic system under Morales has not been deepening, though certain new participatory aspects of democracy, including socio-economic reforms have been carried out. In contrast, this article analyses to what extent the presidency of Evo Morales may be seen as the end of the postcolonialism, and the beginning of (...) a new era in which Bolivia’s indigenous people finally have been incorporated into the forward development of a multi-ethnic society. By analysing issues such as time, nation, land, space, globalization and language, the conclusion is that the new constitution marks a fresh beginning, one beyond the colonial and postcolonial eras, for indigenous groups, but it will not bring back the old indigenous societies as was dominating the territory of today’s modern state. (shrink)

The politics of populism is the politics of belonging. It reflects a deep challenge to the liberal democratic state, which attempts to maintain social boundaries (as an imperative of state capacity) but also allow immigration. Boundaries—established through citizenship and norms of belonging—must be both coherent and malleable. Changes to boundaries become sites of contestation for exclusionary populists in the putative interest of “legitimate” citizens. Populism is an inevitable response to liberal democratic adjustment; any liberal democracy that (...) redefines citizenship opens itself to populist challenge. (shrink)

Habermas endorses democracy as a way to rescue modern life from the economic and bureaucratic compulsion that Weber saw as an inescapable condition of modernity. This rescue mission requires that Habermas subordinate democracy to people's true interests, by liberating their political deliberations from incursions of money or power that could interfere with the formation of policy preferences that clearly reflect those interests. But Habermas overlooks the opaque nature of our interests under complex modern conditions, and the difficulty (...) of even knowing what the modern state is doing—let alone judging whether what it is doing serves our interests well. These overlooked sources of public ignorance buttress Weber's more pessimistic understanding of democracy, and like the theatrics surrounding popular sovereignty, public ignorance both enables and masks the autonomy that allows state officials and non‐state opinion leaders to shape public policy undemocratically. (shrink)

Are socialists best regarded as those who are most truly and consistently committed to democracy, under modern industrial conditions? Is the underlying issue that divides liberals from socialists the degree of their wholeheartedness in affirming the ideal of a democratic society? On the liberal side, Friedrich Hayek has remarked: “It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible that a democracy governs with a total lack of (...) liberalism. My personal preference is for a liberal dictator and not for a democratic government lacking in liberalism.” No doubt many socialists would wish to quibble with Hayek's free-market oriented conception of liberalism. But I am wondering whether the conceptual map implicit in Hayek's remark is apt. Hayek appears to assume that there are two independent lines of division, one marking greater and lesser commitment to liberal values, the other marking greater and lesser commitment to democratic procedures. According to the conception of socialism as democracy that I wish to examine, a better picture of the political landscape would show one line of division with gradations indicating greater and lesser commitment to democracy. On this continuum, socialists are located at the extreme pro-democratic end, those who favor autocracy at the other end, and liberals somewhere in the middle. The analyst who finds this latter conceptual picture the more illuminating of the two will say that Hayek reveals his rejection of socialism by being less than wholehearted in his support of democracy. (shrink)

Pervez Musharraf was the thirteenth Chief of the Army staff and tenth president of Pakistan. In October 1999, he took over as a Chief Executive of Pakistan by dismissing then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Military takeover was savored by the people of Pakistan due to bad governance of democratic Governments. Unlike the former dictator Gen Zia ul Haq, Gen. Pervez Musharraf gave the impression of being secular and liberal. He was an ardent admirer of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk and wanted (...) to establish Turkish Model of democracy in Pakistan. To delink Islam from extremism and fundamentalism, he introduced the strategy of “enlightened moderation” which has been discussed in this paper. Many Pakistanis welcomed his policy of “enlightened moderation” and even OIC acknowledged his approach. He worked sincerely to uplift the status of women in the society. He also led the army in the war against terrorism and launched operation against militants who were challenging the writ of the Government. The economy of Pakistan was at its peak and poverty graph was declining in Pakistan during his period when many sociological changes in the country took place. (shrink)

Although the accelerated globalization of recent decades has flourished in tandem with a notable growth of liberal democracy in many states where it was previously absent, it would be hard to say that the prevailed processes of neo-liberal globalization foster development of global democracy and the rule of law. On the contrary, globalization has undercut traditional liberal democracy and created the need for supplementary democratic mechanisms. In fact, neo-liberalism i.e.libertarianism, which has generally prevailed as (...) the authoritative policy framework in contemporary globalization, does not have much in common with the ideal of liberal democracy of well-ordered society. The serious problem in the relationship between democracy and globalization is, however, related to differences among the global cultures and/or civilizations. Democratic rule of law and the problem of human rights are unquestionable values of the Western civilization. Do they have the same significance in each culture/civilization, in every part of the globalized world? Democratic control of globalization can be completed only through a sort of global governance, but who can realize it in our divided world? (shrink)

Here is a contemporary social paradox: Modern liberal democracy rests upon a platform of a pluralistic civil society. Philanthropy, by providing vital resources, is an essential feature of that civil society. Yet philanthropy also plays an ambiguous role in democracy. Therefore philanthropy potentially both supports and detracts from democracy. This essay explores the nature of this paradox and its implications for the practice of contemporary philanthropy.Neither "civil society" nor "democracy" has a single, (...) universally accepted meaning in the contemporary world. In differing historical and philosophical contexts, civil society has been used to describe a broad spectrum of social phenomena—the realm of social .. (shrink)

Persons and nations agree on the importance of justice but disagree on its requirements. In The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama argues that human history moves towards liberal democracy as the final ideal for all societies. It is conceivable that liberal democratic societies will converge to similar conceptions of justice and that global spread of liberal democracies will promote consensus. This paper tries to show that consensus on justice is, nevertheless, unlikely, due (...) to reasonable disagreement. Reason does not give a single rational or reasonable solution to conflicting demands of justice. This means that apart from reason, other factors play a role in what is regarded as just. Jurisdiction is influenced by tradition and zeitgeist. This explains why also liberal democracies, which may recognize similar principles of justice, still arrive at differing rankings of these principles and divergent results of jurisdiction in time and place. (shrink)

In liberal thought, democracy is guaranteed by the unity of community and government. The community of citizens elects its government according to political preferences. The government rules over the community with powers that are limited by unalienable human, civil, and political rights. These assumptions have characterized Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism, and contemporary Neo-Liberal theories. However, the assumed unity of community and government becomes problematic in Global Post-Fordism. Recent research on the globalization of the economy and society (...) has underscored the increasing inability of nation-states to exercise power over their communities, which, in turn, limits the ability of communities to express their will at the nation-state level. The current phase of capitalism is characterized by socio-economic relations that transcend the jurisdictions of nation-states and local spaces. By introducing features characteristic of Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism and Neo-liberalism, and the contribution of the theory of Reflexive Modernization, which represents a novel attempt to rethink democracy within the liberal tradition, the issue of the fracture of the unity of community and government can be addressed. The inability of governments to control economic and non-economic environments creates a crisis of representation that implies serious limits to liberal democracy. This situation is particularly important for the agricultural and food sector since its development and programs for its democratization have been historically based on the intervention of agencies of and control by the nation-state. (shrink)

Democratic institutions are under pressure as was also the case at the end of the sixties. But where in those days the critique was left-liberal and seeking to extend democracy, now the discomfort with democracy has concervative-populist overtones, related to the reaffirmation of exclusive, mostly national, identities. The populist critique of liberal achievements and institutions has raised questions of ethnicity and identity. The historical tension between national identiy and parliamentary democracy offers a broader frame (...) against which the emergence of nationalist and populist movements, like the Republikaner, Front National and the Vlaams Blok can be understood. These considerations lead to some important questions : is a parlementary democracy in the European Union possible? Does democracy need a specific cultural society? If so, European unification would break the historical link between parliamentery democracy and the nation, without realizing a democracy on a higher multi-national level. Those who want to defend the liberal democracy against the challenge of populist and nationalist political movements, will need to study more closely the cultural foundations of democracy. (shrink)

Global governance has become a topic of interest to many contemporary political theorists. Issues arising from the nature of global markets and multinational corporations can no longer be locally contained. These developments signal the decline of the nation state and therewith the end of the liberal moral and political theory that justified national institutions. The alternative possible orders appear bleak, including anarchy, hegemonic power or the most horrific of all specters, the liberty crushing “world state.” Kant’s cosmopolitan theory of (...) justice can provide a third way between nationalism and its bleak alternatives, providing a measureof global governance upheld by nations without recourse to a world state. My thesis is that a juridical society of states is necessarily founded upon cosmopolitan right having universal jurisdiction and that the implementation of the norms of hospitality underlying cosmopolitan right requires global institutions based upon democratic representation and accountability. (shrink)

How can respect for cultural and religious differences be reconciled with the conviction that everyone has basic human rights that must be secured? Should liberal states require that non-liberal states secure human rights, and can they do so without being intolerant and oppressive? Is there a human right to democracy, and should a liberal hold that all states must become modern liberal democracies and may be pressured to reform their traditional practices and institutions? Do human (...) rights include only the classical liberal civil and political rights, and no economic rights? ;In this dissertation I defend a conception of human rights derived from John Rawls's Political Liberalism, which comprises both Justice as Fairness, the view he presented in A Theory of Justice , and the Law of Peoples, the view he presented in The Law of Peoples . According to this conception, human rights are binding on all societies, and cannot be rejected as peculiarly liberal or politically parochial. Outlaw states that violate them are to be condemned and may in grave cases be subjected to sanctions or intervention. Moreover, human rights include not only basic civil and political rights but also basic economic rights. However, while there may be a human right to live under a procedurally democratic government, it would not be a basic right but a derivative one. ;The conception of human rights that I here defend is a rational reconstruction of Rawls's view. In Chapters 1--3 I argue against the most natural interpretation of The Law of Peoples, defend a different interpretation, and expose and bridge a logical gap in that text. I then develop new responses to objections by Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, who hold that liberals who endorse Justice as Fairness must reject the Law of Peoples as insufficiently egalitarian. I also respond to the additional objection that the set of human rights cannot include economic rights. As I show, endorsing Justice as Fairness requires endorsing the Law of Peoples, and public reason can reconcile respect for cultural and religious differences with the conviction that everyone has basic human rights that must be secured. (shrink)