Liberal Democracy

In political science, the term liberal democracy is used to describe states whose political system is constructed according to liberal and democratic principles. Liberal democracies are characterized by free elections , separation of powers , rule of law , market economy , human and civil rights as well as civil and political freedom rights , which are guaranteed by a constitution .

The concept of embedded democracy developed by the political scientist Wolfgang Merkel characterizes liberal democracy as a system consisting of five sub-regimes: a) a democratic electoral regime, b) the regime of political participation rights, c) the regime of civil liberties, d) the institutional safeguarding of the Control of power and e) the guarantee that effective governance lies with the democratically elected representatives. Based on the way these five sub-regimes function, one can distinguish liberal democracy from the various types of defective democracy (which also include illiberal democracy ).

history

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The origins of liberal democracy lie in the Age of Enlightenment . The writings of John Locke , Montesquieu , Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are considered formative. Starting from Great Britain and the USA in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 20th century, these systems spread into the western hemisphere in the 20th century and have been on the "advance" worldwide since the end of the Cold War . A transformation process towards liberal-democratic systems is taking place, especially in the formerly socialist states of Eastern Europe .

Despite some doubts about the suitability for all cultures by the ruling classes (e.g. People's Republic of China , Arab states), even dictators can assume a worldwide ideological “victory” of the term “democracy” with reference to democratic and liberal values . Francis Fukuyama took this as an opportunity to speak of the end of history and assumed that liberal democracies would soon be established worldwide. In particular the (also moral) failures in the Middle East ( Middle East conflict , Iraq war , Lebanon war 2006 ) and the economic successes of authoritarian systems (China) make a kind of natural distribution appear rather doubtful according to Fukuyama.

See also

• Freedom-democratic basic order
• Democracy theory
• Liberal Democratic Party (overview of parties that call themselves liberal-democratic or democratic-liberal)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oliver Dlabač, Hans-Peter Schaub: A dual measurement concept for liberal and radical democracy Quality , Journal of Comparative Politics , 2012th
2. ↑ Wolfgang Merkel: The "embedded" democracy - an analytical concept. In: WZB-Mitteilungen. No. 106, 2004, pp. 7-10 ( PDF; 160 KB ).
3. ↑ Wolfgang Merkel : Defekte Demokratie , Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 978-3-8100-3234-8 .
4. ↑ Oliver Dlabač, Hans-Peter Schaub: A dual measurement concept for liberal and radical democracy Quality , Journal of Comparative Politics , 2012th