Wherefore the Liberal State?

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Møller
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Fiscal Sociology ◽  
Liberal Constitutionalism ◽  
Liberal Rights

The post-Soviet setting is characterized by a disheartening political paradox. Since the fall of communism, some kind of electoralism has been spreading to almost every corner of the former empire, yet liberal rights and the rule of law have not been its fellow travelers; nor do they seem destined to provide companionship in the imminent future. Revisiting the long-standing German current of fiscal sociology, it is possible to solve this paradox. In the Europe of yesterday, liberal constitutionalism was the product of a quid pro quo between the rulers and the ruled: an exchange of rights for revenue. Historically, this “grand bargain of the liberal state” was a prerequisite for liberal democracy, and the very same social mechanisms—or lack thereof— seem to be operating in the post-Soviet world of today.

scholarly journals The faces of freedom in the concepts of a liberal and non-liberal state

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Justyna Przedańska
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Slight Improvement ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

The last decade has exposed the recession of freedom throughout the world. It arises from the latest Freedom in the World 2020 report that civil liberties and political rights have deteriorated in 64 countries, while only 37 have seen a slight improvement in these areas. The principles of liberal democracy (the rule of law, free elections, minority rights and freedom of expression) in Europe, historically the best-performing region in terms of freedom in the world, have come under serious pressure in recent years. In the article, starting from an analysis of the categories of freedom presented in many aspects, followed by a discussion of the assumptions and concepts of liberalism, as well as the political project referred to as non-liberal democracy, which has grown out of their criticism, the author identifies the problem of instrumentalization and relativization of freedom, which leads to the restriction of freedom of speech, freedom of minorities, religious freedom and sexual freedom, replacing the individual freedoms of the citizens with the so-called collective freedom.

The Politics of Public Order, 1795–1802

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard G. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Road ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
National Convention ◽  
New System

The Thermidorian National Convention, despite some efforts at ‘transitional justice’, failed to master the legacies of the Terror. Therefore, the fledgling regime needed to impose the new republican political order while also restoring basic law and order—two tightly entwined tasks. The Constitution of 1795 articulated a liberal democracy based on the rule of law, but political instability and endemic lawlessness led first to multiple violations of the constitution, especially in the wake of elections, and a steady shift from democratic republicanism toward ‘liberal authoritarianism’. This shift received added impetus during waves of repression intended to restore order on strictly republican terms. The result was the creation a new ‘security state’, one that combined coercive policing, administrative surveillance, exceptional justice, and militarized repression. The emergence of the new system helped to restore order, and thereby to legitimize the Consulate, but it also paved the road to personal dictatorship in 1802.

How Place-Specific Duties Make Borders Morally Relevant

On Borders ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 143-171
Author(s):  
Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Liberal Rights ◽  
People Today

Many people today hold that borders are morally arbitrary, and therefore we should seek a world without borders. This chapter challenges this view. It holds that borders matter morally because bounded jurisdictions sustain liberal rights, which are still the most effective means to resist oppression. However, the chapter argues, the value of borders does not come from grounding equal rights among the members of a group defined by identity, instead what defines the scope of right is place. The chapter examines the idea of place and place-specific duties. The chapter argues that rights cannot be upheld unless the beneficiaries participate in common institutions with others, and a necessary part of these institutions is indexed to place rather than identity. Such institutions, including the rule of law, are embodied and require specific local practices of cooperation. This explains why we need borders to coordinate action in modern societies marked by pluralism.

Support for Liberal Democracy and Populist Attitudes: A Pilot Survey for Young Educated Citizens

2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992094585
Author(s):  
Lisa Zanotti ◽  
José Rama
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Pilot Survey ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Levels Of Support ◽  
Better Than

At the theoretical level, even if populism and democracy are not necessarily antithetical, the former challenges the liberal component of democracy, advocating for the majority rule and putting under stress the principles of the rule of law. To test the relationship between liberal democracy and populism, we created four new questions that measure the support for liberal democracy conceived as a trade-off with different policies. We tested our battery of questions in a pilot survey with educated young voters. The results show that those individuals who exhibit lower levels of support for liberal democracy are the ones with higher populist attitudes. This might be due to the fact that the original battery of questions grasps the level of support for liberal democracy better than the standard ‘Churchillian’ question.

scholarly journals Aharon Barak’s Legal Ideology in the Context of European Constitutionalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Jolanta Bieliauskaitė ◽  
Vytautas Šlapkauskas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Legal Ideology ◽  
The Eu

Abstract The EU lacks the legal ideology as a social instrument that could satisfy the spirit of liberal democracy and would help to consolidate different societies to a solid European demos. Although the existence of an ideological system alone does not guarantee social consensus, it helps to manage dissension within the limits of particular values and norms. It is because a legal ideology provides the structure for social thought that individuals and social groups are able to interpret the nature of emerging conflicts and the interests they support. The article demonstrates that the neoliberal way of thinking that prevails in contemporary Europe does not meet the spirit of the constitutionalism of the EU Member States; the article introduces some aspects of Aharon Barak’s legal ideology that could be relevant for the formation and development of European demos and constitutionalism. In order to achieve this aim, the research is focused on issues that emerge in the area of three main pillars of constitutionalism: (1) adherence to the rule of law, (2) limited and accountable government, and (3) protection of fundamental human rights.

scholarly journals Witchcraft and Statecraft: Liberal Democracy in Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Tebbe
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Equal Citizenship

96 Georgetown Law Journal 183 (2007)This Article addresses the prospects of liberal democracy in non-Western societies. It focuses on South Africa, one of the newest and most admired liberal democracies, and in particular on its efforts to recognize indigenous African traditions surrounding witchcraft and related occult practices. In 2004, Parliament passed a law that purports to regulate certain occult practitioners called traditional healers. Today, lawmakers are under pressure to go further and criminalize the practice of witchcraft itself. This Article presses two arguments. First, it contends that the 2004 statute is compatible with liberal principles of equal citizenship and the rule of law. Second, it warns against outlawing witchcraft as such. Subjecting suspected sorcerers to criminal punishment based on governmental determinations of guilt that many will perceive to be unprincipled would work too much damage to individual autonomy and national unity, among other values. These arguments are designed to contribute to a wider discussion about the capacity of liberalism to respond to the global resurgence of religious traditionalism, especially in countries where traditionalists may comprise a large majority of the citizenry.

scholarly journals Law’s Wars, Law’s Trials The Fate of the Rule of Law in the U.S. ‘War on Terror’

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-35
Author(s):  
Richard L. Abel
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
State Power ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Broad Consensus

The rule of law is a foundation of the liberal state. There is broad consensus about its core, extending across the political spectrum. Our own experience tragically teaches that the rule of law is most endangered when those exercising state power feel threatened: during and after wars and in response to social protest.      

The Rhetoric of Criminal Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
State Power ◽  
Penal System ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
State Punishment ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Penal State

Dual Penal State is about the collective failure to address the fundamental challenge of legitimating the threat and use of penal violence in modern liberal states. The first part of the book investigates various ways in which criminal law doctrine and scholarship have managed not to meet the continuing challenge of legitimating state penal power: the violent violation of the autonomy of the very persons upon whose autonomy the legitimacy of state power supposedly rests in a state under the rule of law (Rechtsstaat). Part I focuses primarily on German criminal law, and German criminal law science, with regular comparative glances beyond the German penal system. Chapter 2 highlights several key rhetorical strategies in modern criminal law doctrine that divert attention from the troubling—and possibly irresolvable—paradox of state punishment in a modern liberal democracy.

Constitutionalism under Stress

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Comparative Constitutional Law ◽  
Liberal Constitutionalism ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
The Eu

This volume is designed to mark the outstanding legacy of Professor Wojciech Sadurski’s scholarship in the field of comparative constitutional law. It provides a rich palette of chapters that aim to rethink the state of the art in this field, in light of the latest challenges to the foundations of liberal constitutionalism. Edited by former doctoral students of Professor Sadurski, the volume transcends the celebration of his major academic contributions by linking his pioneering writings, inter alia on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), to core dilemmas in the turbulent state of the rule of law in western democracies. It consolidates contributions by numerous current and former students, as well as colleagues and friends around the globe in admiration of his didactic style, tireless work, civil dedication, and priceless commentary influencing the work of generations of constitutional scholars. Besides drawing on Wojciech’s fields of interest, the book aims to provide a full overview of the crucial dilemmas in dealing with the current decline of liberal democracies and populist challenges to the rule of law throughout Europe—events that he predicted early on in his writings about the Jörg Haider affair in Austria and the introduction of Article 7 TEU by the Amsterdam Treaty. The major themes of the chapters are thus as follows: 1. Populism and democratic decline in CEE; 2. The EU role: Article 7 TEU vis-à-vis the rule of law in Hungary and Poland; 3. Constitutional review and militant democracy: between public reason and new forms of populism.

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