Like any democracy, liberal democracy is a political ideology and a form of government of the state, in which representative power operates in accordance with the principles of liberalism. This type of worldview places at the forefront the rights and individual freedoms of each individual person, in contrast to totalitarianism (authoritarianism), in which individual rights are considered secondary in comparison with the needs of individual social groups or the whole society and can be suppressed.
What does the concept of “liberal democracy” include?
It is characterized by the presence of fair, free, and competitive elections between many separate political parties, the separation of powers in different branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial), the rule of law in everyday life, civil and political freedoms for all members of society, as well as steady protection with side of the state of fundamental human rights enshrined in the constitution of the country. After a period of steady growth throughout the 20th century, it was democracy that became the main world ideology. At the same time, liberal democracy has become the predominant political system throughout the world.
The origins of liberal democracy
Readers of the older generation will surely recall how they were forced to study and outline Lenin's article “Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism” in Soviet universities. Among the sources of this ideology, which was once adopted by the socialist revolutionaries, their leader included French utopian socialism, German classical philosophy, and British political economy. But all these concepts indicate some theories that explain certain aspects of the life of human society. And what could be the source of the appearance of such a phenomenon as democracy, liberal democracy in particular? After all, this is not a theoretical concept, but a real form of organizing the life of most modern human communities. How did this form of organization come about?
According to one of the most widespread views, the phenomenon of liberal democracy arose after the community of North American citizens, created in the 18th century on the principles of representative democracy, adopted a worldview such as liberalism as its ideology.
Thus, liberalism, democracy, liberal democracy are, figuratively speaking, “links of one chain” in which the combination of the first two concepts in the practice of organizing human society gave rise to the third.
What is democracy?
Democracy is a "system of power or government in which all people participate in deciding on its affairs, usually by voting, elect their representatives to parliament or a similar body (this kind of democracy is called representative, in contrast to direct democracy, when all Citizens exercise their power directly.) Modern political scientists single out the following main signs of a democratic state structure:
- a political system for the election and replacement of government through free and fair elections (to parliament);
- active participation of citizens in politics and public life;
- the protection of human rights provided to everyone;
- the rule of law when it applies equally to everyone.
The origin of liberalism
The history of liberal democracy began in the XVI-XVII centuries. in Europe. In previous centuries, the vast majority of European states were monarchies. It was also believed that democracy, known since ancient Greece, is contrary to human nature, because human beings are evil in nature, prone to violence and need a strong leader who must restrain their destructive impulses. Many European monarchs believed that their authority was predetermined by God and that questioning their authority was tantamount to blasphemy.
Under these conditions, the activity of European intellectuals began (John Locke in England, the French enlighteners Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Didro and others) who believed that relations between people should be based on the principles of freedom and equality, which are the foundation of liberalism. They argued that all people are created equal, therefore, political power cannot be justified by “noble blood”, the supposed privileged access to God, or any other characteristic that claims that one person is better than others. They also argued that governments exist to serve people, not vice versa, and that laws should apply to both rulers and their subjects (a concept known as the rule of law). Some of these ideas found expression in the 1689 English Bill of Rights.
Founders of Liberalism and Democracy
The attitude of the founders of liberalism towards democracy was, oddly enough, negative. Liberal ideology, especially in its classical form, is very individualistic and is aimed at limiting the power of the state over a person. A society based on the principles of classical liberalism is a community of citizens-owners, bearers of intellectual freedoms and natural human rights, who conclude a public agreement between themselves to create state institutions to protect their rights from external encroachments. Citizens of such a state are self-sufficient, that is, they do not need any support from the state for their survival, and therefore they are not inclined to renounce their natural rights in exchange for guardianship on his part. The founders of liberalism considered, first and foremost, representatives of the bourgeoisie as such proprietor citizens, the interests of which they represented. In contrast, democracy was seen in the period of liberalism as a collectivist ideal aimed at empowering the masses, composed mainly of the poor, who, in exchange for guarantees of survival, tend to renounce their civil rights.
Therefore, from the point of view of liberals, giving the masses, for example, suffrage and the opportunity to participate in the development of laws, meant the threat of loss of private property, which is a guarantee of individual freedom from the arbitrariness of the state. On the other hand, adherents of democracy, who come from the social lower classes, viewed the liberals' rejection of universal suffrage for the masses as a form of enslavement. The conflict between the liberals and the Jacobin democrats during the French Revolution led to bloody strife between them and contributed to the establishment of Napoleon's military dictatorship.
Democracy in america
The emergence of liberal democracy as the ideological basis for building a real state took place in the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. in the american united states. The specific conditions for the formation of this country, which were characterized by the presence of huge untapped natural resources, primarily land, guaranteeing the survival of the masses of free citizens without any guardianship from the state, created the conditions for the peaceful coexistence of popular democracy and private property, and therefore liberal ideology.
Throughout the nineteenth century, while America’s natural resources were sufficient for the survival of a growing population, there were no particular contradictions between the American democratic public institutions and the private-ownership nature of the economy. They began in the first half of the 20th century, when America began to be shaken by economic crises, which led to the fact that a democratically formed state began to actively intervene in the economic life of society, limiting the private interests of its owning members in favor of the poor. Thus, American-style modern liberal democracy can be seen as a compromise between liberal individualism based on private property and democratic collectivism.
Liberal democracy in Europe
The evolution of liberal democracy on the European continent took place under conditions different from those of the United States. At the beginning of the XIX century. the source of liberal views in Europe was Napoleonic France, in which, in a fanciful manner, an authoritarian state system was combined with liberal ideology. As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, liberalism spread throughout Europe, and from Latin-occupied Spain to Latin America. The defeat of Napoleonic France slowed down this process, but did not stop it. In the first half of the 19th century, numerous European absolute monarchies collapsed, giving way to parliamentary republics with limited suffrage. In the second half of the XIX century. in Europe, political processes were going on (for example, the Chartist movement in England) aimed at making universal suffrage. As a result, a regime of liberal democracy has been established in all European countries except Russia. He took the form of either a constitutional republic (France) or a constitutional monarchy (Japan, Great Britain).
Liberal democracy, examples of which can be seen today in countries located on all continents, is usually characterized by universal suffrage for all adult citizens, regardless of race, gender or property. In many European countries, adherents of liberal democracy today join with supporters of the evolutionary socialist path of development of society in the person of European social democracy. An example of such a link is the current “broad coalition” in the German Bundestag.
