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The terms “liberal democracy” and “illiberal
democracy,” commonly used by commentators and analysts, retard our
understanding of contemporary politics and assist both the domestic
and international adversaries of democratic systems.
Trying to qualify democratic systems with
“liberal” or other labels has two negative consequences. First, this
conflates the original concept of individual liberty embedded in a
democratic structure with specific policy prescriptions—whether
laissez faire European liberalism or leftist American liberalism.
And second, it allows various authoritarian forces to claim that
they are also democrats who are simply qualifying their own version
of democracy.
In its original 19th century incarnation,
liberalism was synonymous with democracy and stood in stark
opposition to all forms of tyranny. In the emerging democratic
systems, the will of the electorate was represented through
competing parties in regular elections within a constitutional and
legal framework. But the times have changed since the flowering of
Western democracies, and liberalism has assumed various
connotations.
In the United States in particular, the term
liberalism is associated with the leftist wing of the Democratic
Party. It is linked with a more distributive economy, a broad
welfare system and support for diverse individual lifestyles, and is
berated by many conservatives. In Europe, liberalism has become
closely associated with globalization, monetarism and the
curtailment of national sovereignty to international institutions,
and is thereby attacked by both leftists and rightists.
As a result of these definitional developments,
anti-liberals have become proud of the term “illiberal democracy” or
even “anti-liberal democracy.” Indeed, the more they are attacked as
“illiberal” the more emboldened they become, claiming that they
espouse a credible democratic alternative. Some non-liberals prefer
greater specificity and define themselves as “conservative
democrats” or “patriotic democrats” in stark juxtaposition to
“liberal democrats.”
Most conservatives and patriots are genuine
democrats and respect national constitutions, governmental
accountability, and the rule of law. However, some populist leaders
aiming to restrict political competition adorn the masks of
conservatism and patriotism. In an ongoing struggle over democratic
norms, EU institutions have charged the current Hungarian and Polish
governments with various restrictive measures such as interfering in
the justice system and obstructing the mass media. But instead of
underscoring that weakening the system of checks and balances is
undemocratic, many officials and analysts assert that it is
“illiberal,” thus paradoxically giving credence to such actions.
Leftist campaigns for “political correctness” have
also contributed to strengthening the anti-democratic populists.
Radical populists seek to inflame public outrage against what they
depict as restrictions on free expression, in which the leftist or
liberal establishment limits the public vocabulary and stifles
dissent. However, condemnations of “political correctness” also
provide camouflage for racists and xenophobes to claim that their
messages of prejudice and hate should not be publicly outlawed by
allegedly anti-democratic liberalism.
An additional source of confusion and conflict,
especially in the United States, is the “progressive” label that the
harder left of the Democrat Party has adopted. Not only is such a
self-definition explicitly dismissive of other political
positions—presumably in juxtaposition to everyone else who is
“regressive”—but it is also tainted in its use by communists
throughout the Cold War. The “progressive” label serves to divide
society and helps the radical rightist populists to portray
themselves as traditionalists and conservatives.
Any qualification of the term “democracy” also
allows outright autocrats to pose as democrats. The most pertinent
example is Vladimir Putin’s “managed democracy,” a term developed
soon after Putin assumed power in 2000 to disguise his reversal of
Russia’s incipient democratic developments. Moscow has a long
tradition of appropriating and perverting Western concepts. One of
the most flagrant examples was the notion of a “people’s
democracy”—a term applied to the satellite European states of the
Soviet bloc. The system of rule in these countries was neither
democratic nor determined by “the people” but by a “progressive”
communist elite installed by the Kremlin.
The current threat to European democracy comes
primarily from populist radicals, particularly from the hard right.
Unfortunately, several EU officials naively assist them by claiming
that the EU should enhance its role as the guardian of the “liberal
world order.” They inadvertently expose themselves to charges of
imposing a particular worldview and “globalist” policy prescriptions
on the nations of Europe rather than defending the fundamentals of
democracy.
Putin has regularly jumped into the liberal and
globalist narrative by either attacking Washington for its avowed
attempts to create a “unipolar world” or berating Brussels for
imposing an unpopular liberalism. Moscow’s message is that “liberal
democracies” are only one variant of democracy, and that Russia is
defending the alternatives against American or European
globalization. Hence, a restricted political opposition, a compliant
parliament, subservient regional governments, a controlled media and
police repression are presented as Russia’s “sovereign democracy.”
At a time of ideological confusion and
terminological simplification, any definitional qualifications of
democracy must be treated with skepticism and suspicion. Above all,
analysts must avoid being pulled into a semantic quagmire where
almost any system can pose as a democracy and gain some validity
despite its disdain of basic democratic principles.
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