This book is the first major account of political thought in twentieth-century Europe, both West and East, to appear since the end of the Cold War. Skillfully blending intellectual, political, and ...cultural history, Jan-Werner Mller elucidates the ideas that shaped the period of ideological extremes before 1945 and the liberalization of West European politics after the Second World War. He also offers vivid portraits of famous as well as unjustly forgotten political thinkers and the movements and institutions they inspired.Mller pays particular attention to ideas advanced to justify fascism and how they relate to the special kind of liberal democracy that was created in postwar Western Europe. He also explains the impact of the 1960s and neoliberalism, ending with a critical assessment of today's self-consciously post-ideological age.
This article assesses recent normative theorizing on militant democracy-the idea that, to protect themselves, democracies might under some circumstances have to restrict the rights of those set on ...undermining or outright destroying democracy. Particular attention is paid to new justifications of militant democracy that seek to avoid the danger of militant democracy itself damaging democracy, as well as to the question of who the agent deciding on implementing militant democracy ought to be. Three new challenges for thinking about militant democracy are identified: certain forms of religious belief and practice, new varieties of authoritarianism that include elections and some limited freedoms, and the question of whether international and supranational institutions can play a role in protecting democracies.
Militant democracy calls for pre-emptive measures against political actors who use democratic institutions to undermine or outright abolish a democratic political system. Born in the context of ...interwar fascism, militant democracy has recently been revived by political and legal theorists concerned about the rise of authoritarian right-wing populists. A long-standing charge against militant democracy-also articulated with renewed force in our era-is that, as a top-down way to deal with the intolerant, militant democracy is inherently elitist and bears uncomfortable similarities with technocracy (also understood as an intolerant form of governance). But while it is true that militant democracy relies on state institutions to preserve democracy, it by no means excludes citizen engagement: "courts or the people" is a false choice. On the other hand, citizens engaged in militant democracy must take on the difficult task of distinguishing very clearly between democratic essentials under threat and political questions about which citizens might reasonably disagree. While citizen assemblies are not the answer to all of contemporary democracies' travails, they might be very helpful in clarifying such distinctions for wide audiences.
It has become conventional wisdom that populism is on the rise across the West. In Latin America, where populism is often perceived as a long-standing political tradition, leaders often described as ...populist have recently occupied center stage (and office) in a number of countries. The usage of the word populism signals anxieties both by liberals about democracy and by democrats about liberalism. Adapted from the source document.
On the square Müller, Jan-Werner
Philosophy & social criticism,
04/2024
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Mass assembly on squares tends to be associated both with democracy and authoritarian as well as populist regimes (where assembly is connected to acclamation). The article elucidates the specific ...democratic functions of mass assembly, and how they can be facilitated both legally and spatially. In case of the former, it provides a critical analysis of indispensable core components of the right to assemble (which has recently been hollowed out in many jurisdictions); in matters of space, the article proposes characteristics of squares that might facilitate and represent different forms of democratic assembly (without claiming that such characteristics could ever guarantee democratic outcomes). Some recent empirical evidence for how squares have enabled the increasingly important phenomenon of “urban civic revolutions” is also discussed.
Abstract
This reply to Gila Stopler’s provocative piece on the possible complicity of political liberalism and right-wing populism welcomes Stopler’s strategy of identifying structural weaknesses in ...liberal theory. But it also presents three specific disagreements: first, it is argued that Rawls is much less of a defender of the status quo in really existing liberal democracies than Stopler makes him out to be; second, the argument is advanced that political liberalism has significant resources to counter right-wing populism; and, third and most important, it is claimed, following the work of philosophers such as Gina Schouten, that political liberalism can (and must) incorporate feminist concerns.
Ever since the 19th century, political parties and free media were widely deemed indispensable for the proper functioning of representative democracy. They constituted what one might call the ...critical infrastructure of democracy, an infrastructure which enabled citizens to use their basic rights effectively and also to reach each other (and be reached). Both intermediary institutions are undergoing major structural transformations today (or might disappear altogether, if processes of ‘disintermediation’ continue). It has proven difficult to judge these changes, partly because we lack a proper account of the distinctive normative roles of intermediary institutions beyond standard claims of ‘connecting citizens to the political system’. The essay argues that intermediary powers remain indispensable in staging political conflict, in providing external and internal pluralism and in properly structuring political time.
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