This volume presents influential work by Nicholas Wolterstorff at the intersection between political philosophy and religion, alongside nine new essays on the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. These novel essays offer an attractive alternative to the public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls.

Is liberal democracy appropriate for East Asia? In this provocative book, Daniel Bell argues for morally legitimate alternatives to Western-style liberal democracy in the region. Beyond Liberal Democracy, which continues the author's influential earlier work, is divided into three parts that correspond to the three main hallmarks of liberal democracy--human rights, democracy, and capitalism. These features have been modified substantially during their transmission to East Asian societies that have been shaped by (...) nonliberal practices and values. Bell points to the dangers of implementing Western-style models and proposes alternative justifications and practices that may be more appropriate for East Asian societies. If human rights, democracy, and capitalism are to take root and produce beneficial outcomes in East Asia, Bell argues, they must be adjusted to contemporary East Asian political and economic realities and to the values of nonliberal East Asian political traditions such as Confucianism and Legalism. Local knowledge is therefore essential for realistic and morally informed contributions to debates on political reform in the region, as well as for mutual learning and enrichment of political theories. Beyond Liberal Democracy is indispensable reading for students and scholars of political theory, Asian studies, and human rights, as well as anyone concerned about China's political and economic future and how Western governments and organizations should engage with China. (shrink)

This volume presents influential work by Nicholas Wolterstorff at the intersection between political philosophy and religion, alongside nine new essays on the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. These novel essays offer an attractive alternative to the public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls.

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...

Liberal democracy has been experiencing a crisis of representation over the last decade, as a disconnect has emerged from some of the foundational principles of liberalism such as personal freedom and equality. In this article, I argue that in the third part of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason we can find resources to better understand and counteract this crisis of liberal democracy. Kant gives a powerful argument to include an invisible ethical community under (...) a political community, and this ethical community has to take the form of a church. Kant argues then that any political system, and so also liberal democracy, requires religion to ally citizens in a foundational way with the general principles of that system. This would commit liberal nations to having their foundational principles buoyed by religion. Towards the close of the essay, I attend to how this might impact on liberalism’s commitment to religious and ideological pluralism. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Of the many ideological blind spots that have afflicted US and, to a lesser extent, European, perceptions and analysis of the economic, political and social milieu, none have been more debilitating than the equation of democracy with political liberalism. Thus those who attempt to derive propaganda value from such an equation are vulnerable, as the US government has found, to the rhetorical counter attack that in opposing democratically elected governments, such as that of Hamas or Hugo Chavez, they are (...) not merely being anti-democratic, but are in illiberally opposition to human rights and civil liberties also; an argument quiteindependent of the same charges, emanating more legitimately, from their support of, for example, the Masharraf regime and the Saud dictatorship.Furthermore no less an august body than the Council of Europe has drawn attention to the US government’s inhumane, humiliating, degrading and cruel treatment, including torture, of prisoners, at Guantanamo, and, seemingly even more extreme treatment of prisoners in the supposedly secret or “black” prisons operated both by the CIA, and other countries, where the torture of prisoners, often illegally or extra judicially rendered to them, has been outsourced. In light of this the paper takes up a discussion of the nature of the relationship between Liberalism, Democracy and Torture as it is germane to the current legitimation crisisfacing liberal democracies. (shrink)

Liberal Democracy and the Judeo-Christian Tradition Increasingly often, it is stated that the universal values underpinning Western liberal democracies are a product of a ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition. This article explores the legitimacy of this claim from the perspective of liberal-democratic theory. It argues that state-endorsed claims about the historical roots of liberal-democratic values are problematic (1) if they are promoted as though they are above democratic scrutiny and (2) if they insinuate that citizens who belong to (...) a particular (majority) culture remain the ‘cultural owners’ of the core values underpinning the state. More pragmatically, the paper suggests that the claim carries the risk of failing to facilitate all citizens becoming or remaining committed to nurturing fundamental rights and a shared society based on norms of democratic equality. (shrink)

Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy captures the unique blend of politics and economics, along with a particular culture and civil society, that are characteristic of liberal democracy. Commercial and economic activity have been so crucial to liberal democracy that it has often been characterized as “commercial republicanism,” and Schumpeter referred to it with justification as “bourgeois democracy.” Schumpeter’s view, which is too often characterized as simply elitist, can be situated in the realist tradition, (...) offering a helpful corrective to simplistic understandings of democracy, such as populist understandings, that are at odds with the promise of liberal democracy. Yet while Schumpeter thought that capitalism would collapse under its own contradictions, and wondered if democracy could survive without it, today global capitalism looks unstoppable. It is bourgeois democracy that looks fragile, not because of the collapse of capitalism, as Schumpeter predicted, but because of its success. Can liberal democracy surive if global capitalism undermines the middle class on which it depends? (shrink)

: My project aims to develop a relational, pluralistic political theory that moves us beyond liberal democracy, and to consider how such a theory translates into our public school settings. In this essay I argue that Dewey offers us possibilities for moving beyond one key assumption of classical liberalism, individualism, with his theory of social transaction. I focus my discussion for this paper on Dewey's renascent liberal democracy. I move from a discussion of Dewey's liberal (...) democratic theory to what a relational, pluralistic democratic theory might look like, with Dewey's help. (shrink)

This book offers a contemporary critique of liberal democracy, understood as a set of institutions and as a set of ideas.

We seek to establish a dialogue between democratic and Islamic normative political theories. To that aim, we show that the conception of democracy underlying a prominent Islamic political model is procedural. We distinguish proceduralism from a liberal conception of democracy. Then, we explain how bringing together Islamic political theory and democracy alters the meaning of the latter. In other words, we show that democracy within Islam often means democracy within Islamic limits.

The increasing number of residents and citizens with non-Western cultural backgrounds in the European Union (EU) has prompted the question of whether EU member states (and other Western democracies) can accommodate the newcomers and maintain their free polities (‘liberal democracies’). The answer depends on how important – if at all – cultural groundings are to democratic polities. The analysis of a fascinating Habermas-Ratzinger debate on the ‘pre-political moral foundations of the free-state’ suggests that while legitimacy originates on the will (...) of the citizens that conform the political community, liberal democracies might not be completely free from moral principles implicit in their political culture. This possibility has normative implications for the political future of the EU - and of the West in general - particularly regarding immigration, integration and citizenship policies. (shrink)

This article advances a critical analysis of John Rawls’s justification of liberal democratic nuclear deterrence in the post-Cold War era as found in The Law of Peoples. Rawls’s justification overlooked how nuclear-armed liberal democracies are ensnared in two intransigent ethical dilemmas: one in which the mandate to secure liberal constitutionalism requires both the preservation and violation of important constitutional provisions in domestic affairs, and the other in which this same mandate requires both the preservation and violation of (...) the liberal commitment to international legal arrangements and to the rule of law generally. On this view, the choice to violate constitutional provisions and international legal arrangements is evidence of nuclear despotism. Moreover, this choice does not imply that the ethical foreign policy dilemmas were resolved. Instead, it implies that the dilemmas force liberal democratic governments into implementing ethically paradoxical policy outcomes. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between experts and laypeople is crucial for understanding today’s world of post-truth and the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. The emergence of post-truth has been linked to various phenomena such as a flawed social and mass media ecosystem, poor citizen education, and the manipulation tactics of powerful interest groups. The paper argues that the problem is, however, more profound. The underlying issue is laypeople’s inevitable epistemic dependence on experts. The latter is part and parcel of (...) the “risk society” in which people question the scientific consensus and thus are able to manipulate the facts. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of illiberal democrats, though liberal democrats can make no use of it. The latter downplay the problem of citizens’ epistemic deficits and of the epistemic asymmetries between them. The third and fourth generations of deliberative democrats are a perfect example. The paper argues that the concepts of interactional expertise and epistemic dependence explain why understanding between experts and laypeople is impossible. The said phenomena undermine liberalism’s unrealistic assumptions concerning citizens’ decision-making competence. (shrink)

Introduction -- Methodology : an approach to philosophical analysis -- Fukuyama I : the concept of a history with universal direction and end point -- Fukuyama II : why does history end in liberal democracy? -- Postmodern perspectives on the flow of time -- Questioning the universality of human nature -- The myth of the individual : how "I" is constructed and gives an account of itself -- A theory of a history which ends in liberal (...) class='Hi'>democracy through a reading of Fukuyama and postmodernism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A new ‘political philosophy’ is indispensable to the ‘post-Corona world,’ and this paper tries to analyze the future of ‘liberal democracy’ in it. It shows that ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that has begun before, but the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic,’ as a setback for it, strongly encourages that crisis. ‘Liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed by ‘political philosophers’ to go together, are now becoming decoupled, and the ‘liberal values’ of ‘ (...) class='Hi'>democracy’ are eroding. To find why and how, this paper analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ and the evils and propensities of ‘democracy’ that bring about further erosions of ‘liberal values.’ There may be difficult trade-offs to be made between ‘liberal’ and ‘authoritarian’ ‘values’ - and, after the experience of ‘Coronavirus,’ this paper shows the ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy’ may become stronger. -/- KEYWORDS: democracy, liberalism, liberal democracy, illiberal democracy, the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. -/- EXTENDED ABSTRACT For almost a century in West, ‘democracy’ has meant ‘liberal democracy’-a political system marked not only by ‘free and fair elections,’ but also by ‘liberal values.’ ‘Liberalism’ applied to the problem of the limits of the criminal law would require commitment to the presumption in favor of ‘liberty.’ If the word ‘liberal’ is to have any utility in this context, it should refer to one who has so powerful a commitment to ‘liberty’ that she is motivated to limit the number of acknowledged liberty-limiting or coercion-legitimizing principles as narrowly as possible. So, she only believes in ‘harm-principle’ as the morally relevant reason for criminal prohibitions. ‘Offense principle’ and ‘paternalistic’ and ‘moralistic’ considerations, when introduced as support for penal legislation, have no weight at all. So, it means ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-regarding vs. other-regarding actions distinction’ based on which the human is the owner of her mind and body and everything consenting adults do is beyond the realm of morality and law. It leads to ‘individual’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties’ of ‘speech,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘property’ and ‘collective’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties of assembly,’ ‘civil society,’ ‘political pluralism,’ ‘democratic institutions,’ and ‘non-governmental organizations.’ ‘Liberalism’ also believes in ‘equality of conditions, ‘equal and free participatory rights in political decision making,’ and ‘collective self-governance.’ It also believes in the ‘rule of law,’ a ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘checks and balances.’ However, even under fair and free elections, the elected leaders can be ‘populists,’ ‘ultra-nationalists,’ ‘racists,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘authoritarians’ who do not respect ‘inviolable basic rights and liberties,’ and suppress ‘minorities.’ Democratically elected leaders can routinely ignore constitutional limits on their power and deprive their citizens of ‘basic rights and liberties.’ The two strands of ‘liberal democracy’ have been coming apart in the world, and the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ have been fraying and eroding even before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ Even before the Coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of ‘liberal democracy.’ In particular, there has been a debate about whether ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled. This paper shows ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that had begun before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ It also analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘liberalism,’ and ‘democracy’ and shows that Covid-19 is a setback for ‘liberal democracy.’ What is striking about the current moment is that many of the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ are so far holding up under immense pressure. ‘Illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many countries. This model of ‘illiberal democracy,’ in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights and liberties are curtailed, may emerge stronger from this new crisis. In that sense, the ‘pandemic’ may become a challenge not only to ‘democracy’ as such but also to ‘liberal democracy’ in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. ‘Authoritarian’ procedures may succeed in mitigating the spread of the ‘Coronavirus,’ but the world now faces another problem: that when the virus recedes, many ‘liberal democracies’ will be far less ‘liberal’ or ‘democratic’ than they were before. In times of crisis, ‘liberal values’ have been ignored temporarily in the name of executive power. However, the ‘temporary’ can become ‘permanent.’ In addition, if citizens lose their faith in the legitimacy of ‘liberal democracy’ as the best form of government, and think ‘liberal democracy’ cannot function effectively during a crisis, and ‘authoritarian regimes’ manage the crisis more decisively, the world will slide towards ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy,’ and many ‘liberal democracies’ will be at grave risk of failure. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security - and, after the experience of Covid-19, many citizens may choose security. (shrink)

Despite the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of liberal democracy celebrated by Francis Fukuyama as “the end of history”, a growing number of scholars and political activists point to its inherent shortcomings. However, they have tended to dismiss it on the basis of one or two of its salient weaknesses. While this is a justifiable way to proceed, it denies the searching reader an opportunity to see the broad basis for the growing rejection of (...) class='Hi'>liberal democracy among African political theorists. Consequently, in this article, I argue that from an African perspective, the almost hegemonic status of liberal democracy can be challenged on at least five grounds, namely, logical inconsistency, impracticability due to the largely communalistic outlook of many africans, inconsistency between affirmation and action, violation of the right to ethnic identity, and the moral imperative to assert the right to cultural emancipation. -/- I conclude by calling upon African and Africanist political theorists to utilise indigenous African political thought, coupled with emancipatory aspects of political thought from other parts of the world, to design practicable models of democracy for contemporary African states. I further conclude that in order to promote genuine inter-cultural dialogue on democratisation, people from Western cultures ought to acknowledge the equality of all cultures, and to recognise that systems of governance are part and parcel of those cultures. (shrink)

ExcerptContemporary Western societies have a peculiar relationship with their political foundations. On the one hand, after the collapse of big metaphysical narratives and the appearance of what has been called the “weak thought” of postmodernity, liberal democracies developed the idea that they were the fulfillment of multicultural “open societies,” societies that, characterized by the coexistence of different moral and religious beliefs, do not allude to any comprehensive doctrine of the good or to any public philosophical or theological-political background. On (...) the other hand, it is precisely radical relativism and the absence of foundations, or, as Richard Rorty put it, the…. (shrink)

Although the accelerated globalization of recent decades has flourished in tandem with a notable growth of liberal democracy in many states where it was previously absent, it would be hard to say that the prevailed processes of neo-liberal globalization foster development of global democracy and the rule of law. On the contrary, globalization has undercut traditional liberal democracy and created the need for supplementary democratic mechanisms. In fact, neo-liberalism i.e.libertarianism, which has generally prevailed as (...) the authoritative policy framework in contemporary globalization, does not have much in common with the ideal of liberal democracy of well-ordered society. The serious problem in the relationship between democracy and globalization is, however, related to differences among the global cultures and/or civilizations. Democratic rule of law and the problem of human rights are unquestionable values of the Western civilization. Do they have the same significance in each culture/civilization, in every part of the globalized world? Democratic control of globalization can be completed only through a sort of global governance, but who can realize it in our divided world? (shrink)

While the word “democracy” has proliferated in social and political discourse in recent decades, I suggest that the liberal democracy of the past, connected as it is (especially in the West) to the market economy, is insufficient for the challenges facing the contemporary Latin American context. I assess and criticize democratic ideas in order to suggest that the way forward is radical democracy based on socio-economic and political justice. These, however, have to be articulated at a (...) variety of levels, from that of local and indigenous peoples to that of national and international relations. (shrink)

Liberal democracy constitutes a particularly attractive political model with its emphasis on both popular sovereignty and individual liberty. Recently several new and innovative articulations of the liberal democratic ideal have been presented. This article reviews three of these recent theories and particularly their democratic credentials. The selection includes theories emphasizing modus vivendi, Rawlsian political liberalism and liberal equality. Taken together these theories show different ways to conceptualize democracy within liberal thought. I argue that ultimately (...) all three approaches struggle with articulating a persuasive conception of democracy, but nevertheless these theories show that liberals do think seriously about the role of democracy in their theories. (shrink)

This article examines when economic sanctions should be imposed on liberal democracies that violate democratic norms. The argument is made from the social-liberal standpoint, which recognises the moral status of political communities. While social liberals rarely refer to the use of economic sanctions as a pressure tool, by examining why they restrict military intervention and economic aid to cases of massive human rights violations or acute humanitarian need, the article is able to show why they are likely to (...) impose strong restrictions on the use of economic sanctions as well. After reconstructing the social-liberal case against economic sanctions, the article develops the argument that liberal democracies have reasons to support sanctions on other liberal democracies, even when they perpetrate injustices on a smaller scale. Liberal democracies share especially strong ideological, cultural and institutional bonds, and these peer group relations open them to mutual influence. When one liberal democracy commits serious injustices while still proclaiming allegiance to the democratic ethos, it can adversely affect the vitality of the democratic culture in those other liberal democracies with which it maintains close relations. Other liberal democracies therefore have the right and the obligation to condemn this behaviour, in order to preserve their allegiance to their values. The article defends the use of economic sanctions in light of some recent critiques, and concludes by providing an overall assessment of the factors which liberal democracies ought to take into account when they consider imposing economic sanctions on other liberal democracies. (shrink)

Rorty was one of the great dissolvers of dualisms, but strangely this iconoclasm ended when it came to liberal democracy. Here he held fast to the most stubborn of dualisms in political thought, a simple dichotomy of the public and the private, and used it, unsuccessfully, to resolve questions concerning the place of religion in modern democratic politics. Yet the philosophical basis of Rorty's pragmatism both undercuts two common ways of spelling out the relationship between religion and the (...) polity in liberalism and makes his use of the public/private dichotomy impossible. By means of an internal critique, I argue for a Habermasian corrective. (shrink)

A study investigating how the founders of Marxism came to terms with the emergence of liberal democracy as a political system. It examines, in language without jargon, how they defined democracy and how they evaluated the liberal constitutional state, by placing their ideas in historical context.

Moving from an historical analysis of the Catholic Church's gradual endorsement of liberal democracy to an explication of the ethical and political thought of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Persons and Liberal Democracy concisely explains the relatively recent shift in the Church's political theory and, in the process, defends what could be deemed a non-statist form of welfare liberalism. This book offers a systematic account of John Paul's philosophical and theological ethics and their relationship to the key (...) elements of his political thought and then brings this thought into conversation with some important strands of Christian and secular political theory deliberating the nature and legitimacy of liberalism. (shrink)

The Normative Commitments of Liberal Democracy This paper thematises an unresolved tension in Johan van der Walt’s attitude towards ‘the unreasonable other’ who challenges the liberal democratic regime. This tension results from his reluctance to provide a more explicit account of the normative commitments of liberal democracy. Van der Walt’s analysis is characterized by a ‘fear of substance,’ which is, however, based on a false dichotomy between pure proceduralism and metaphysical substantivism. It similarly reveals a (...) ‘fear of a democratic ethos,’ which is, in turn, based on a false dichotomy between a proceduralistic ethics of civility and a metaphysically rooted ethos. These fears often lead Van der Walt to misrepresent the views of both John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas and, consequently, to obscure the promising ways in which they provide a normatively explicit account of liberal democracy that allows us to deal with the antagonistic enemy of liberal democracy in a more consistent and convincing manner. (shrink)

What do we talk about when we talk about ethical diversity as a challenge to the normative justifiability of liberal democracy? Many theorists claim that liberal democracy ought to be reformed or rejected for not being sufficiently ‘inclusive’ towards diversity; others argue that, on the contrary, liberalism is desirable because it accommodates (some level of) diversity. Moreover, it has been argued that concern for diversity should lead us to favour (say) neutralistic over perfectionist, universalistic over particularistic, (...) participative over representative versions of liberal democracy. This paper provides a conceptual framework to situate those debates, and argues that there are two fundamental ways in which diversity constitutes a challenge to the justificatory status of liberal democracy: consistency (whereby diversity causes clashes between the prescriptions generated by normative political theories), and adequacy (whereby diversity generates a rift between our experience of what is considered valuable and what the theory treats as such). (shrink)

Assuming that liberalism, liberal democracy, and the free market are here to stay, this book asks how sustainability can be interpreted in ways that respect liberal democratic values and institutions. Among the problems addressed are the compatibility of liberal procederalism with substantive "green" ideals, the existence and potential of eco-friendly principles and ideas in clasical liberal political theory, the role of rights and duties and of democracy and deliberation, and the "greening" potential of modern (...) environmentally-focused practices in liberal democracies. (shrink)

In the current crisis of liberal democracy, Confucianism has been cited as offering superior alternative models of government. With the resources from Dewey’s Pragmatism, this paper defends democracy, which should not be equated to de facto liberal democracies, as desirable for Confucian societies. It examines the affinities between Confucian and Dewey’s conception of the person and community and argues for an understanding of democratic values that brings together Dewey’s democratic values and Confucian ideals of personal cultivation (...) and virtuous governance. (shrink)

'... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth.

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 7, Page 992-1013, September 2022. This article examines the connection between populism and post-foundationalism in the context of contemporary debates about populism as a strategy for the Left. I argue that there is something “populist” about every constitutional order, including liberal democratic ones. I argue so drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s theories of hegemony, agonistic democracy, and left populism. Populism is the quintessential form of post-foundational politics because, rightly understood, populism constructs the (...) object it claims to represent, namely the people. As such, it expresses the fact that, because there is no ultimate foundation, politics consists in the construction of contingent foundations. I develop this argument through readings of Jan-Werner Müller and Chantal Mouffe, showing the differences between their respective post-foundational approaches. I show that Müller cannot uphold the distinction between populism and democracy in the way he seeks to do, but I also argue that this does not mean that we must jettison all normativity, only that it requires that we rethink normativity in hegemonic terms. (shrink)

In this important new work in political and constitutional theory, Michael J. Perry elaborates and defends an account of the political morality of liberal democracy: the moral convictions and commitments that in a liberal democracy should govern decisions about what laws to enact and what policies to pursue. The fundamental questions addressed in this book concern the grounding, the content, the implications for one or another moral controversy and the judicial enforcement of the political morality of (...) liberal democracy. The particular issues discussed include whether government may ban pre-viability abortion, whether government may refuse to extend the benefit of law to same-sex couples and what role religion should play in the politics and law of a liberal democracy. (shrink)

This work provides a reflective assessment of recent developments, social relevance and future of environmental political theory, concluding that although the alleged pacification of environmentalism is more than skin deep, it is not yet quite deep enough. This book will appeal to students and researchers of social science and philosophers with an interest in environmental issues.

The relationship between Eastern Orthodoxy and the political ethos of the West is of crucial importance for contextualizing the Church’s social engagement in the present day. Aristotle Papanikolaou and Vigen Guroian highlight points of tension in their respective accounts of the relationship between the Orthodoxy and western democratic social orders. Analysis of their argument provides a context for examining their contrasting understandings of human rights as a dimension of the public engagement of Orthodox Christians with the political realm. While neither (...) completely rejects appeals to human rights, neither claims that such rhetoric manifests the full truth about the dignity of the human person according to the theological anthropology of Orthodox Christianity. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos of Albania, the statements of the Council of Crete (2016), and several other contemporary Orthodox voices place appeals to human rights in a theologically nuanced context that affirms their legitimacy while refraining from identifying them with the fullness of the moral and spiritual vision of Orthodox Christianity. Analysis of the debate between Papanikolaou and Guroian gives rise to a tentative affirmation of the critical use of the language of human rights in Eastern Orthodox social ethics. (shrink)

The politics of populism is the politics of belonging. It reflects a deep challenge to the liberal democratic state, which attempts to maintain social boundaries (as an imperative of state capacity) but also allow immigration. Boundaries—established through citizenship and norms of belonging—must be both coherent and malleable. Changes to boundaries become sites of contestation for exclusionary populists in the putative interest of “legitimate” citizens. Populism is an inevitable response to liberal democratic adjustment; any liberal democracy that (...) redefines citizenship opens itself to populist challenge. (shrink)

Liberalism and democracy are not identical. In the phrase “liberal democracy” the two terms are conflated—with the result that liberalism tends to trump democracy. My paper challenges this tendency. It first examines critically central features of “minimalist” liberal democracy as formulated by some leading theorists. The discussion then shifts to critical assessments in both the East and the West. Turning first to South Asia, the focus is placed on Gandhi’s teachings regarding popular self-rule (swaraj) (...) where the latter does not mean “selfish rule” but rather the ability of people to rule themselves in an ethical manner. Moving to East Asia, I concentrate on Confucianism which emphasizes the basic ethical “relationality” of human life and stands opposed to both radical individualism and collectivism. The paper concludes by invoking the work of John Dewey who famously defined democracy as an ethical community. (shrink)

Pope John Paul II's encyclical The Gospel of Life is the locus classicus for the claim that a culture of death is enshrouding the modern world. His identification and critique of what he calls the “culture of death” directly challenge liberal democracy, particularly on its separation of freedom from truth. This essay will focus on that challenge. The first part offers an analytic introduction to the term “culture of death,” the second part unfolds the late pope's argument, and (...) the third part advances a defense of it. What and Where is the “Culture of Death”?Critics of abortion, euthanasia, and…. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Epistemology and Politics Peirce James Dewey Neo‐pragmatism.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction A Brief Definition of Liberal Democracy Social Organizations: Definition and Taxonomy Fellowship Associations as Paedeia for a Viable Liberal Democracy Local Fellowship Associations and Liberal Democracy A Well‐Connected Liberal Democracy with a Base at the Local Level.

In liberal thought, democracy is guaranteed by the unity of community and government. The community of citizens elects its government according to political preferences. The government rules over the community with powers that are limited by unalienable human, civil, and political rights. These assumptions have characterized Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism, and contemporary Neo-Liberal theories. However, the assumed unity of community and government becomes problematic in Global Post-Fordism. Recent research on the globalization of the economy and society has (...) underscored the increasing inability of nation-states to exercise power over their communities, which, in turn, limits the ability of communities to express their will at the nation-state level. The current phase of capitalism is characterized by socio-economic relations that transcend the jurisdictions of nation-states and local spaces. By introducing features characteristic of Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism and Neo-liberalism, and the contribution of the theory of Reflexive Modernization, which represents a novel attempt to rethink democracy within the liberal tradition, the issue of the fracture of the unity of community and government can be addressed. The inability of governments to control economic and non-economic environments creates a crisis of representation that implies serious limits to liberal democracy. This situation is particularly important for the agricultural and food sector since its development and programs for its democratization have been historically based on the intervention of agencies of and control by the nation-state. (shrink)

An influential view of liberalism and its view of education holds that it is a western construct unsuited to non-western societies. Bikhu Parekh’s critique of liberal democracy is taken here as representative of that position. In challenging that view, this article shows through an analysis of recent policy that post-apartheid education in South Africa expresses a liberal view of education, just as the political order introduced in 1994 is a liberal one. If we adopt Parekh’s principle (...) that societies should be allowed to choose their own destinies, there are transcendental grounds for promoting liberalism and a liberal view of education outside of the liberal western democracies. (shrink)

This article has been written in response to the texts by Richard Robson (“In What Sense is Multiculturalism a Form of Communitarianism”), and Slobodan Divjak (“Communitarianism, Multiculturalism and Liberalism”) with which the Balkan Journal of Philosophy (vol. 10, no 2, 2018) started a discussion on the theme Liberal Democracy and Cultural Diversity. I try to contest the position of these two authors–that multiculturalism and communitarianism belong to one and the same paradigm in political philosophy–by pointing out essential (...) class='Hi'>liberal normative elements in multiculturalist theory. My main thesis is that in order to clarify the relation between multiculturalism and communitarianism, we have to differentiate between descriptive and normative communitarianism. The latter is guided, in my opinion, by values, which stand in stark contrast with the liberal ones, whilst this is not the case with multiculturalism. (shrink)