Liberal democracy

1
Liberal democracy

• Democracy an essentially contested concept
• Individual freedom vs. popular sovereignty
• Social contract theory
• Citizenship
• Civil society
• Decision making voting and deliberation
• Social liberalism and the welfare state
• Ideological success, partisan failure,
  reinventions and redefinitions of liberalism

2
Democracy an essentially contested concept

• Democracy an ideal, not an ideology
• Explanatory, evaluative, orientative, and
  programmatic, but lacking capacity for moral
  guidance
• Conceptions of democracy
• Liberal democracy
• Majoritarian, but respecting (minority) rights
• Social democracy
• Equalling property and wealth with power, aiming
  to overcome inequality in distribution of power
• Peoples democracy
• Avangardist ruling in the interest of the
  people, i.e. the working class

3
The model of liberal democracy

• Representative government
• Periodic multi-party elections
• Universal suffrage
• Rule of law
• Due process
• Equality before the law
• Constitution
• Protecting individual rights and freedoms
• Minority rights
• Free market

4
Pre-democratic liberalism

• Social contract theory (Hobbes, Locke)
• Individuals enter into society
• To preserve their property
• To limit power of every part and member of
  society
• Retaining a right to resistance to established
  government
• Legitimacy of government derives from good
  government, i.e. delivering protection of life,
  liberty and property
• Suspicious towards democracy (Locke, Founding
  Fathers)
• Because of inherent elitism (aiming for
  government of the brightest, which makes
  parliamentarianism part of liberal doctrine more
  naturally than popular democracy)
• Fear of despotism of majority (potentially
  infringing on individual and minority rights)

5
Illiberal democracy

• Classic democratic theory (e.g. Rousseau)
• Popular sovereignty
• Elections as manifestations of common will
• Post Cold War
• Populist, elected, quasi-dictatorial regimes
  (e.g. Russia)
• Obstruction (or reluctant recognition) of
  democratic process because of alleged or expected
  illiberal intentions of majority winners (e.g.
  Algeria, Venezuela)
• Post 9/11
• Democracy is the largely unchallenged universal
  political ideal
• In contrast, threats to liberal values, human
  rights, on the ground of safety concerns

6

• The system itself is the problem. We are trying
  to fight 21st century crime ASB, drug-dealing,
  binge-drinking, organised crime with 19th
  century methods, as if we still lived in the time
  of Dickens.
• The whole of our system starts from the
  proposition that its duty is to protect the
  innocent from being wrongly convicted.
• Dont misunderstand me. That must be the duty of
  any criminal justice system.
• But surely our primary duty should be to allow
  law-abiding people to live in safety.
• It means a complete change of thinking.
• It doesnt mean abandoning human rights.
• It means deciding whose come first.
• (Tony Blair, Labour Party Conference, 27/09/2005)

7
Citizenship

• Liberal constitutionalism
• Politics as a provider for activities of private
  individuals in pursuit of idiosyncratic
  interests, protecting their constitutional and
  legal right to life, liberty and property
• Uncivic tradition no conception of active
  citizenship implying that you dont need
  democrats to form a democracy
• Social liberalism, and the liberal concept of
  citizenship
• The people ultimate source of state authority
  and legitimacy
• The subjects bound by democratically formulated
  collective political will, but enjoying civil
  rights
• The clients bearers of positive rights i.e.
  depending on welfare state to provide them with
  means for autonomy

8
Civil society

• Civil society a realm of social life that ought
  to be separate from the state
• Terrain of human association, distinct from body
  politic
• Markets
• Civil associations
• Political associations
• Right to free speech (Kantian public use of
  reason)
• Public sphere and deliberative democracy
  (Habermas)
• Forum for public debate, free from state
  interference, to develop public opinion(s),
  common values
• Political participation beyond mere voting

9
Voting and deliberation

• Populist vs. liberal interpretation of voting
  (William H. Riker)
• Populist view Self-control through
  participation will of the people embodied in
  action of elected officials
• Liberal view function of voting is to control
  officials (e.g. Benthams public opinion
  tribunal)
• Modes of decision-making
• Aggregation
• Fixed preferences, idiosyncratic roots of opinion
• Deliberation
• Change (enlightenment) of preferences through
  public debate

10
Presence and future of liberalism

• Historically most successful ideology
• In conjunction with democratic ideal, liberal
  thought has emerged as a globalizing, allegedly
  universal foundation of social and political
  organization
• Human rights regime
• Eurocentrism
• Global failure of liberal party politics
• With exception of Canada, liberal parties have
  become centrist niche parties
• Liberalism supplants democratic party
  competition, without still presenting a dominant
  political movement
• Tendency of right wing movements to hide behind
  liberal party label (e.g. Australia, Austria)
• Tendency of liberal parties to emphasize economic
  liberalism over political liberalism (e.g.
  Germany)

11
Reinventions and redefinitionsof liberalism

• Anachronistic applications of classic liberal
  thought
• New RightNeoconservatism/Thatcherism
• Nozick minimal government, taxation for purpose
  of public welfare and infrastructure provision is
  stealing
• Redefinition of liberal in US politics
• Labelling prononents of welfare state, state
  expansion, affirmative action, etc. as liberals
• Claims concerning the existence of a liberal
  bias in US media (explaining by upper middle
  class, male, white background of journalists,
  who, accordingly, hold liberal values that
  infringe upon their reporting of politics)
• Fox news claiming to rebalance political
  journalism by representing average American
  values
• No empirical evidence supporting hypothesis, but
  majority of Americans, even amongst Democrats,
  convinced of existence of liberal bias