scholarly journals Fidesz, liberal democracy and the fundamental law in Hungary

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Gomez ◽  
Sven Leunig
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Fundamental Law ◽  
Democratic Principles

AbstractAfter its landslide victories of 2010, 2014 and 2018, Fidesz has introduced numerous institutional changes in the Hungarian political system. The academic research has emphasized the illiberal and antidemocratic character of these reforms, and the populist ideology of the party has been widely considered as the underlying force behind them. This study analyzes the most important reform that Fidesz has undertaken: the new Fundamental Law, enacted in 2012. We examine whether this change can be regarded as a violation of liberal democratic principles, and, if that is the case, whether it can be linked to the populist character of Fidesz. We found that some of the most criticized dispositions of the newly enacted constitution cannot be regarded as violations of liberal democratic principles, whereas other changes clearly constitute attacks to the foundations of Hungarian democracy, mainly affecting the separation of powers and the civil rights of minorities, These findings are largely consistent with the effects of populist governments on democracy as documented in the literature.

Demokracja nieliberalna jako projekt polityczny

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 11-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Antoszewski
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Second World

Illiberal democracy seems to be one of the most important topics for political scientists studying the process of post­communist democratisation. It may be – and often has been – considered as a real alternative for models of democracy developing in the Western political hemisphere. This article focuses on the sources of crisis of liberal democracy and possible political consequences of its replacing by an illiberal vision of political system. Author hypothesises that making illiberal democracy real requires the reinterpretation of main democratic principles, such as representation or separation of powers, as well as abandoning of political consensus, present in consolidated West European democracies after the Second World War, and, in effect, fundamental change of patterns of political behaviour. The question of the future of illiberal democracy is also posed and three possible scenarios are considered.

Policy towards the Judiciary as a symptom the transformation of the Polish political system in years 2015–2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (58) ◽  
pp. 9-24
Author(s):  
Dariusz Skrzypiński
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Ruling Party

The article provides an analysis of PiS1. actions with respect to the judiciary. PiS is the ruling party in Poland since 2015. It implemented very deep institutional reforms and took intensive communication measures of propaganda-like discrediting nature which brought significant political consequences. Firstly, the principles of rule of law and separation of powers were breached leading to a departure from standards of liberal democracy. Secondly, very strong polarisation of attitudes occurred in the society and legal elites with respect to the introduced reforms, causing politicisation of the judiciary and confrontation inside the judiciary between those in favour and those against the government’s actions.

The American Polity: A Systematic Ambiguity

1986 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Mark Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Conceptual Frame ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
Democratic Character

This paper constructs, within the American liberal consensus, a conceptual frame into which the great paradoxes of American politics can be fitted without significant omission or unexplained contradiction. The foundation of the American liberal consensus is seen to be a Protestant-bourgeois individualism divided against itself. This fundamental division issues into conflicting visions of America as a democracy. In national, legitimizing myth, America is seen as a Protestant-tinctured social democracy organized in terms of sovereignty of the people, confederalism, separation of powers, and popular government. On the other hand, in the ideology of America as a legally functioning state, it is a bourgeois, liberal democracy organized in terms of constitutionalism, federalism, mixed government, and representative government. These distinctions make possible a consistent explanation of the consensus-cleavage paradox that lies at the core of American political life. They also explain the persistent ambiguity that confuses the democratic character of the American political system and also the biformalism of its major institutions.

scholarly journals Populism, liberal democracy and the ethics of peoplehood

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Wolkenstein
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Justification ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Democratic Principles

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the latter conforms to particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people.

Predator Neoliberalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Kamal Dib
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Socioeconomic Change ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
The Mediterranean

Lebanon, a multi-confessional state, is undergoing a deep socioeconomic change that could trigger a review of its constitutional arrangement. The tiny republic on the Mediterranean was born in 1920 as a liberal democracy with a market economy, where the Christians had the upper hand in politics and the economy. In 1975, Lebanon witnessed a major war that lasted for fifteen years, and a new political system emerged in 1989, dubbed the Ta’ef Accord. The new constitutional arrangement, also known as the “second republic,” transferred major powers to the Muslims. Under the new republic, illiberal policies were adopted in reconstruction, public finance, and monetary policy, coupled with unprecedented corruption at the highest levels. On 17 October 2019, the country exploded in a social revolution which could precipitate the death of the second republic or the demise of the country as another victim of predator neoliberalism.

Challenges of the parliamentary system in Iraq after 2003

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Emad Wakaa Ajil
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Long Time

Iraq is one of the most Arab countries where the system of government has undergone major political transformations and violent events since the emergence of the modern Iraqi state in 1921 and up to the present. It began with the monarchy and the transformation of the regime into the republican system in 1958. In the republican system, Continued until 2003, and after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, the regime changed from presidential to parliamentary system, and the parliamentary experience is a modern experience for Iraq, as he lived for a long time without parliamentary experience, what existed before 2003, can not be a parliamentary experience , The experience righteousness The study of the parliamentary system in particular and the political process in general has not been easy, because it is a complex and complex process that concerns the political system and its internal and external environment, both of which are influential in the political system and thus on the political process as a whole, After the US occupation of Iraq, the United States intervened to establish a permanent constitution for the country. Despite all the circumstances accompanying the drafting of the constitution, it is the first constitution to be drafted by an elected Constituent Assembly. The Iraqi Constitution adopted the parliamentary system of government and approved the principle of flexible separation of powers in order to achieve cooperation and balance between the authorities.

Recalling and/or Repressing German Marxism? The Case of Ernst Fraenkel

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
William E. Scheuerman
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Judith Shklar ◽  
Third Way Politics

I spent a few unseasonably hot summer days in 1996 digging around in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz for what later became a lengthy essay on Ernst Fraenkel (1898–1975), the neglected German socialist political and legal thinker. I still recall struggling to justify my efforts not simply as an historian of ideas but also as a political theorist who, at least in principle, was expected to make systematic contributions to contemporary debates. The problem was that Fraenkel had focused his acumen on investigating liberal democratic instability and German fascism, matters that did not seem directly pertinent to a political and intellectual constellation in which political scientists were celebrating democracy's “third wave.” With Tony Blair and Bill Clinton touting Third Way politics, and many former dictatorships seemingly on a secure path to liberal democracy, Fraenkel's preoccupations seemed dated. Even though Judith Shklar had noted, as late as 1989, that “anyone who thinks that fascism in one guise or another is dead and gone ought to think again,” political pundits and scholars in the mid-1990s typically assumed that capitalist liberal democracy's future was secure. When I returned to the US and described my research to colleagues, they responded, unsurprisingly, politely but without much enthusiasm.

Does Liberal Democracy Presuppose a Cultural Nation? Four Arguments

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARASH ABIZADEH
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Shared Norms

This paper subjects to critical analysis four common arguments in the sociopolitical theory literature supporting the cultural nationalist thesis that liberal democracy is viable only against the background of a single national public culture: the arguments that (1) social integration in a liberal democracy requires shared norms and beliefs (Schnapper); (2) the levels of trust that democratic politics requires can be attained only among conationals (Miller); (3) democratic deliberation requires communicational transparency, possible in turn only within a shared national public culture (Miller, Barry); and (4) the economic viability of specifically industrialized liberal democracies requires a single national culture (Gellner). I argue that all four arguments fail: At best, a shared cultural nation may reduce some of the costs liberal democratic societies must incur; at worst, cultural nationalist policies ironically undermine social integration. The failure of these cultural nationalist arguments clears the way for a normative theory of liberal democracy in multinational and postnational contexts.

Colombian Parties and Political Development

1976 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Peeler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
Traditional Authority ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Authority Relationships ◽  
Latin American Countries

Colombia remains one of a very small group of countries in Latin America which retain competitive, liberal-democratic political institutions at this writing. Indeed, Colombia's civil government, recognizing a modicum of individual liberties and conducting periodic elections, has been shattered on relatively few occasions since the mid-nineteenth century, a record equalled or surpassed by few other Latin American countries. The Colombian political system is still dominated by the two traditional political parties (Liberal and Conservative) which arose in Colombia and elsewhere in the region in the nineteenth century. In almost every other country they have long since passed into oblivion or insignificance. This continued dominance by the traditional parties is commonly attributed to their successful mobilization of mass support, especially among the peasantry. The Colombian parties (unlike their counterparts elsewhere) early moved beyond being mere elite factions by using traditional authority relationships, clientelistic exchanges and ideological appeals to develop durable bases of mass support.

The Mensheviks and NEP Society in Russia

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Brovkin
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
New Period ◽  
History Of

AbstractContemporary scholarship on the development of the Soviet political system in the 1920s has largely bypassed the history of the Menshevik opposition. Those historians who regard NEP as a mere transition to Stalinism have dismissed the Menshevik experience as irrelevant,1 and those who see a democratic potential in the NEP system have focused on the free debates in the Communist party (CP), the free peasantry, the market economy, and the free arts.2 This article aims to revise some aspects of both interpretations. The story of the Mensheviks was not over by 1921. On the contrary, NEP opened a new period in the struggles over independent trade unions and elections to the Soviets; over the plight of workers and the whims of the Red Directors; over the Cheka terror and the Menshevik strategies of coping with Bolshevism. The Menshevik experience sheds new light on the transformation of the political process and the institutional changes in the Soviet regime in the course of NEP. In considering the major facets of the Menshevik opposition under NEP, I shall focus on the election campaign to the Soviets during the transition to NEP, subsequent Bolshevik-Menshevik relations, and the writings in the Menshevik underground samizdat press.

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