William Graham Sumner and the Problem of Liberal Democracy

2010 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Philosophy ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Incompatible Elements ◽  
Capitalist State

AbstractThis paper examines problems of the liberal democratic order through an analysis of the political thought of a neglected American thinker, William Graham Sumner. Sumner argues that the liberal order is inextricably linked to laissez-faire, and is under siege from the closely interrelated threats of socialism, plutocracy, imperialism, and the degeneration of democracy. He recognizes that the liberal-democratic capitalist state has significant deficiencies, including atomization, “cold” economic relations, and a loss of “poetry.” It also seems to depend upon values which are not readily propagated by liberalism. But efforts to address deficiencies through government action amount to attempts to intermix philosophically incompatible elements and serve to hasten the system's collapse. Sumner's work unwittingly suggests that the usual “Lockean” liberal model may be so flawed that a revised public philosophy, with new language and paradigms, is needed for the effective pursuit of his goals of freedom, dignity, and human development.

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theory of Dictatorship

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
General Analysis ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reconstructs the intellectual-historical background to Carl Schmitt’s well-known analysis of the problem of dictatorship and the powers of the Reichspräsident under the Weimar Constitution. The analysis focuses both on Schmitt’s wartime propaganda work, concerning a distinction between the state of siege and dictatorship, as well as on his more general analysis of modern German liberalism. It demonstrates why Schmitt attempted to produce a critical history of the history of modern political thought with the concept of dictatorship at its heart and how he came to distinguish between commissarial and sovereign forms of dictatorship to attack liberalism and liberal democracy. The chapter also focuses on the conceptual reworking of the relationship between legitimacy and dictatorship that Schmitt produced by interweaving the political thought of the Abbé Sieyès and the French Revolution into his basic rejection of contemporary liberal and socialist forms of politics.

Freedoms and Ideology: The Current State of Political Thought in the Middle East

1984 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Louis Awad
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Current State ◽  
Democratic Tradition ◽  
Egyptian History

Mr. Moderator, ladies, and gentlemen: I should like to begin by thanking MESA profoundly for this kind invitation. I must not forget to say that I was surprised to find that the general title of the colloquium today was “The Post-Liberal Age in the Middle East,” which sounds like a gruesome epitaph on a certain period. I personally belong to the school which holds fast to the liberal democratic tradition and I shall try to point out in the few lines which I have put down—which I will read out now—why I still belong to that school which believes in liberal democracy and secularism.It is very difficult to trace the concept of Freedom or to analyse its theoretical content across Egyptian history up to 1798, the date of Bonaparte’s Expedition in Egypt.

scholarly journals Liberal democracy and globalized capitalism in Africa: Perspective from Heidegger

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-47
Author(s):  
Joseph Nnnemeka Agbo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Actual Experience ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ontological Analysis ◽  
Political Ground ◽  
And Control ◽  
Critical Methods

This paper sets out to defend a set of mutually inclusive theses. First, it argues that liberal democracy’s sojourn in Africa is not political but economic. Secondly, that there is nothing natural about capitalism, rather capitalism was forcefully globalized in order to create the false impression that man is by nature motivated by self-interest or profit. But this paper demonstrates the historicity of capitalism. Finally, the paper employs Martin Heidegger’s ontological analysis to show that liberal democracy is just the political manifestation of what he calls “the nihilism of Western metaphysical thinking”, a thinking that is expansionist, dominating and ultimately “enframing”; (controlling). Using the expository, historical, analytic and critical methods, the essay demonstrates that the liberal democratic march in Africa is to provide the enabling conditions for capitalist exploitation. Thus, it argues that without the political ground- clearing capacity of liberal democracy, the economic domination and control by capitalism in Africa would be very difficult. In conclusion, the paper draws from the actual experience of liberal democracy and the thrust of capitalism in Africa to demonstrate their ontological ambivalence.

(Neo)Liberal populism and Ireland’s ‘squeezed middle’

Race & Class ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-49
Author(s):  
Rosie R. Meade ◽  
Elizabeth Kiely
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
The Unemployed

Acknowledging definitional problems associated with the concept of ‘populism’, this article shifts the analytic gaze away from actors or politics that are conventionally characterised as populist, on to an analysis of the doing of populism by those who typically evade the populist label. Tracing the discursive construction of the ‘squeezed middle’ in Irish mainstream media and parliamentary debates between January 2014 and March 2019, the authors analyse how this signifier was mobilised to fuel and foment ressentiment among middle-earning taxpayers. This article analyses how the discourses of the ‘squeezed middle’ functioned ideologically, as a form of anti-welfare populism, redirecting blame for middle-class ontological and material insecurities on to unemployed welfare recipients who were depicted as immoral, lazy and insulated from hardship. This article highlights how populism operates from the so-called moderate centres of liberal democracy and not exclusively from the political margins. Irish political and media narratives of the ‘squeezed middle’ are seen as part of a larger project whereby damaging myths about the unemployed are propagated in service of ideological class warfare; legitimising neoliberal austerity and normalising unequal economic relations.

THE INFLUENCE OF POPULISM ON DEMOCRACY IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Mirilias Azad ogly Agaev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Silent Majority ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Impact

The article is devoted to the impact of populism on democracy. To investigate the impact of populism on democracy, the author explores key approaches to the populism notion: political, socio-cultural and ideological. The article notes that populism studies lack a single definition and emphasizes there are negative, positive and neutral evaluations of the nature of this phenomenon. These conclusions are used for further assumptions about the impact on liberal democratic institutions. After analyzing the works on the populism of such scholars as B. Arditi, H.-G. Betz, M. Canovan, E. Laclau, K. Mudde, S. Mouffe, K. Rovira Kaltwasser, N. Urbinati, and others, the article draws conclusions about the multidimensionality of influence on liberal democracy and, in particular, about the fallacy of solely negative assessments of this impact. The author underlines the presence of both positive aspects (providing the interests of the “silent majority”, mobilizing excluded groups and integrating them into the political sphere), and negative aspects (rejection of representative democracy and parliamentarism) of populism.

Does Inclusion Require Democracy?

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam James Tebble
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Group Representation ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Level ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
Public Decision

Iris Marion Young's theory of democracy aims to accommodate the idea of difference by combining anti-essentialist, identity conferring social groups and mediated socio-economic relations. In this way they are supposed to combine instrumental rationality with inclusiveness and the recognition of difference. Using the political thought of F.A. Hayek, this paper mounts a critique of Young's difference theory. In particular it argues that Young's theory of group representation at the institutional level of politics contradicts her commitment to an anti-essentialist account of groups. Whereas her account of group identity is necessarily fluid and inclusive, her account of recognition is rigid and exclusionary. Furthermore the epistemological demands of democratic communication and economic coordination undermine her instrumental account of public-decision making. In contrast it will be argued that Hayek's political thought provides instructive alternative way of addressing the tensions at the heart of Young's theory.

Political Deliberative Process and Consensus: A Review of Objections to Liberal Democracy

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Eduardo Ribeiro Balera
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Deliberative Process ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Chantal Mouffe ◽  
The Face ◽  
Agonistic Democracy

In contemporary times, several theories have highlighted the role of democracy in resolving public controversies, especially in the face of pluralism. Based on this scenario, this article aims to resize some of the main criticisms of liberal democracy. Therefore, initially, the essay presents the striking features of the political thought of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls for the proper understanding of this review. Then, these characteristics are confronted with objections formulated by Chantal Mouffe, who is an advocate of a concept of agonistic democracy.

scholarly journals DECELERATING FACTORS OF THE LIBERAL-DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN LATVIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
Nataliya M. Khoma
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
The Stability

The problem of the quality of Latvia’s democracy during the period of EU membership (2004-2020) is studied. Latvia’s progress / regression in strengthening the stability of the principles and values of liberal democracy is assessed. The author’s estimation of the reasons of growth of defects of democracy in Latvia is offered. Attention is drawn to the extent to which the political culture of Latvians corresponds to the values of liberal democracy.

Rethinking

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Sharath Srinivasan
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Studies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Strategic Studies

This chapter introduces the study’s orientation to understanding peacemaking in civil wars and different attempts to explain failed peacemaking in the Sudans. The chapter critiques mainstream peacemaking scholarship – from bargain approaches in realist and strategic studies to liberal democratic constitutionalism and reformist statebuilding – as well as prominent alternatives from political economy and conflict and peace studies, highlighting that they share in common problematic conceptions of politics as amenable to logics of ‘making’. This clears ground for the book’s novel theoretical critique of peacemaking drawing on Hannah Arendt’s political thought. Contemporary peacemaking risks undervaluing the political component in civil wars, risks emphasizing making an edifice for politics over civil political action itself, and risks producing means that violently overrun the sought after ends of peace. The chapter calls for a tragic understanding of peacemaking that compels, first of all, a need to carefully rethink what peacemaking is doing in attempts to make or build peace.

Hubris, constitutionalism, and “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”: The repression of Catalan secessionist referenda in Spanish constitutional law

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 943-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hèctor López Bofill
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Spanish Constitution ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Abstract This article analyzes the struggles of the Catalan government to organize a referendum on secession and the constitutional framework invoked by the Spanish central authorities to prohibit it. The repression of secessionist referenda within the Spanish constitutional framework triggers several problematic questions concerning the role of constitutional supremacy in handling subnational secessionist challenges developed under a pacific and democratic framework. The article offers a comparison between the Spanish-Catalan case and other examples of secessionist referenda within liberal democracies, underscoring that the Spanish solution of repressing such referenda through criminal law is unique in the liberal democratic context. The article also offers a description of the political, historical, and legal circumstances surrounding the Spanish central authorities’ actions that explains the Spanish constitutional response to both the Catalan Consultation held on November 9, 2014, and the referendum on Catalan independence held on October 1, 2017. The article concludes by arguing that the prohibition of the Catalan referendum initiatives on independence and their subsequent prosecution through criminal law may cripple the basic pillars of the Spanish liberal democracy designed under the 1978 Spanish Constitution.

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