The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: Diagnostics and Therapies

In light of the looming crisis facing liberal democracy, this collection of 22 special national and regional reports, synthesised by a general report, delves into this crisis. The reports first examine the common characteristics and manifestations of this crisis such as corruption, weakness of institutions, loss of the sense of the common good, etc. More specific factors are also highlighted, such as the absence of a democratic tradition and distorted relations with European structures, amongst others. After describing their national particularities, the national special reports reveal that the notion of democracy is polysemic. Democracy sometimes refers to the idea of “good government” or even comes from a very specific concept that is alien to Western Theories, as can be seen in China. Liberal democracies are, in fact, mixed systems. Democracy is, essentially, a mode of legitimising power, while liberalism is a mode of limiting power (separation of powers, fundamental rights, etc.). The confusion between these two requirements and, probably, the reinforcement of liberal logic to the detriment of democratic logic, leads to the development of regimes that become, or claim to be, illiberal without renouncing democratic principles and vice versa. The crisis of liberal democracy is also the result of the crisis that affects the concepts in which democracy has developed (for example, People, State, Nation, Power). The interplay between economic and social factors must also be highlighted. Globalisation leads to the dispersion of competences away of the state. Transnational economic regulation means that democratic principles no longer apply to national economic and social policies. Thus, the weakening of democracy can be associated with the breaking of the founding social contract of the welfare state and the delegation of important economic decisions to politically irresponsible actors. With the convergence of these two tendencies, a regime emerges where the will of the majority has little or no influence on substantive decisions related to economic governance. The fact remains that while the concept of liberal democracy presents specificities in these two fields, the political and the institutional, on the one hand, and the economic and the social, on the other, the concept of liberal democracy refers to a Western system in which political, economic and social issues have been combined, democratic principles being corrected, or supplemented, by mechanisms for guaranteeing individual freedoms, and economic liberalism being corrected by social requirements. It is the balance between these requirements, if ever existed, that is today called into question and threatened. This book raises an important question: can we believe in a regeneration of liberal democracy? With a General Report by Bertrand Mathieu and George Katrougalos, and Special Reports by Maurice Adams, Astrid Ceron-Padilla, Efren Chavez-Hernandez, Kenny Chng, Lóránt Csink, Maartje De Visser, Tímea Drinóczi, Marcelo Figueiredo, Maaike Geuens, Juan Calos Henao, Kevin Fredy Hinterberger, Konrad Lachmayer, César Landa, Andreas Marcou, Tatiana S. Maslovskaya, Luca Mezzetti, Mo Jihong, Nikolaos Paraskevopoulos, Marie-Odile Peyroux-Sissoko, Ricardo Ramirez-Calvo, Jana Reschová, Mathias Revon, Alejandra Rodríguez Galán, Bianca Selejan-Guţan, Patrick Taillon, Elena-Simina Tanasescu, László Trócsányi and Tomasz Tulejski, and a foreword by Prokopios Pavlopoulos.