The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy

Liberal democracy is liberalized democracy: that is, democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism. The paper outlines the constitutive features of liberalism and shows how they determined the form and content of democracy and gave rise to liberal democracy as we know it today. It then goes on to argue that liberal democracy is specific to a particular cultural context and cannot claim universal validity. This, however, does not lead to cultural relativism as it is possible to formulate universal principles that every good government should respect. The paper offers one way of reconciling universalism and cultural diversity.     

Liberal Democracy and Neoliberalism: A Critical Juxtaposition

In this essay I argue that neoliberalism is both an economic and a political doctrine and that its historical trajectory, both conceptual and political, especially in the United States, is better understood in relation to its complex relationship of affinity with liberal democracy. The intersection between liberal democracy and neoliberalism is thus better apprehended from the perspective of the separation of the economic and the political in capitalism and the relative autonomy that it structurally grants to each field of power. Liberal democracy has provided a depoliticized framework that nurtures neoliberalism, while providing it with a cloak of legitimacy. Stated somewhat differently, the historical trajectory of liberal democracy, as a theory and as a practice of power, betrays an anti-democratic tendency that leads to depoliticization and has quelled the democratic politics that once gave credence to it, thus paving the way for the rise of neoliberalism.     

Parties, Democracy and Grounded Utopias: A Reply to Sara Motta

The article is a reply to Sara Motta's article 'Utopias Re-imagined: A Reply to Panizza' in this journal. It discusses the relations between representative and participatory democracy in Latin America in the light of Motta's vindication of different forms of participatory democracy. It argues that when analysing the advances of the left and the centre-left in contemporary Latin America it is difficult to ignore the strategic role played by left-of-centre political parties in winning elections and the importance of controlling the state as a crucial instrument for promoting change. It further argues that while participatory democracy is essential for a democratic polity, it presupposes a well-functioning representative democracy rather than an alternative to it. Against Motta's celebration of localised, anti-capitalist utopias the article vindicates a process of iterative yet cumulative change that shapes and reshapes the political and institutional parameters that redefine what governments consider politically possible, feasible and desirable. It concludes by noting that the twentieth century's failure of totalising utopias makes us overlook the success of other, more grounded and open forms of utopian thinking, such as political democracy and economic social democracy, which have the potential to improve the lives of millions of people in Latin America.     

Liberal Democracy: One Form or Many?

This article examines whether there are significant differences between liberal democracies which warrant them being classified as different forms of democracy. The article begins by outlining six features of liberal democracy which are crucial in understanding how this type of government works. The subsequent section examines the origins of liberal democracy and considers the relevance of arguments derived from American 'exceptionalism'. Attention is then focused on liberal democratic governments today - by reference to Lijphart's distinction between 'majoritarian' and 'consensus' democracies. Finally, the article looks at whether the form of liberal democracy is changed substantially when it is transplanted into a cultural context different from the one in which it originated. The general conclusion is that there is no case for identifying different forms of liberal democracy.     

Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Democratization

Liberalism has provided both a necessary basis for modern democracy and also a constraint upon it. This duality makes a democratic critique of liberalism both imperative and also problematical, in so far as it threatens the conditions of liberal democracy itself. Two of these conditions are examined - the institution of representation and the principle of the limited state - to discover what limits they might impose on the justifiable ambitions of democratizers, to extend political participation on the one hand, and the social agenda for democratization on the other.     

Communal Democracy and Liberal Democracy: An Outside Friend's Look at the Swiss Political Tradition

This article offers a brief overview of the history of Swisscommunal liberty. The author traces the development of key conceptsand practices, especially the use of covenant, that were employedto strengthen and expand the federation. The author then explainshow the cultural background of the peoples that settled Switzerlandcontributed to the formation of the polity. In a comparativeanalysis between liberal democracy and communal democracy, theauthor notes that the struggle to synthesize the conflict betweenthe theories and practices of these two forms of democracy hasbeen at the heart of Swiss politics for the last 200 years.     

Liberal Nationalism and Cultural Rights

Liberal nationalists such as Yael Tamir and Will Kymlicka have argued for an extravagant range of cultural rights based on respect for individual autonomy. I present an alternative account of the moral import of liberal autonomy for the status of cultural minorities. The article examines three pivotal aspects of Tamir's argument for cultural rights and argues that, in each case, Tamir's position fails to honour the value of individual autonomy, and in ways parallel to Kymlicka's argument. These shared difficulties point to some basic ontological and moral properties of a genuine autonomy-based defence of cultural rights.     

Millian Radical Democracy: Education for Freedom and Dilemmas of Liberal Equality

This paper returns to J. S. Mill to draw out democratic conceptions of education and equality that challenge still-current conceptions of intractable human inequalities. Mill acknowledges that individuals differ in abilities. Nonetheless, he develops a broad conception of 'education for freedom' and insists that only 'wretched social arrangements' prevent virtually all people from exercising capacities for self-government in citizenship, marriage, and industry. In the same breath, he qualifies his democratic egalitarianism with reference to a sub-class of working people whose 'low moral qualities' leave them unfit for such self-government. Modern liberal states largely dismiss Mill's more radical democratic impulse. Meanwhile, they reiterate and refine his exclusionary one through new practices for constructing and managing inequalities – for example, IQ tests, educational 'tracking', and social science categories like the 'underclass'. I reconsider this divided legacy of Mill's egalitarianism as a basis for rethinking the limits of today's 'meritocratic' egalitarianism.     

Discomforts of Victory: Democracy,Liberal Values and Nationalism in Post-Communist Europe

This article tries to identify the main threats to post-communist liberal democracies, especially those perils related to the weakness of pluralist traditions, institutions, and values and the rise of movements and ideologies rooted in cultural and political malaise, ressentiment, and disaffection. Nine such perils are identified in the second half of the article, including Leninist legacies, salvationist popular sentiments, the rhetoric of reactionary nostalgia, the fluidity of political formations, the crisis of values, authority, and accountability, and the tensions between individualistic and communitarian values. The concern here is with a diagnosis of the main vulnerabilities of Eastern Europe's post-communist states in order to evaluate prospects for further democratic consolidation and risks for the rise and affirmation of ethnocratic parties and movements. Understanding the post-communist political and cultural situation, including persistent isolationist, anti-globalisation, populist and nationalist trends, is of critical importance for interpreting the main directions these countries will pursue in their efforts to join the European Union institutions.     

Universals and Particulars: the Case of Liberal Cultural Nationalism

Recent work in liberal political theory has rejected cosmopolitanism to incorporate the empirical agenda of nationalism and multiculturalism. In this article three issues facing cultural national liberalism are first extracted from Rawls's Political Liberalism : the range of reasonable cultural identities under liberalism; the substantive ethical bases of the state; and the possibility of principles of cultural self-respect. I then examine three works which address these problems, Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship , David Miller's On Nationality , and Charles Taylor's 'The Politics of Recognition'. Kymlicka provides principles of cultural self-respect but is caught between conceptualising culture in universalist and particularist terms. Miller's liberal national state rests on shared meanings, but this serves to complicate the introduction of universal moral ideas. Taylor presents authenticity as an alternative self-understanding to liberal autonomy, but I argue against the notion of cultural authenticity.