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HUMAN DIGNITY AND ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY"
IN TIME OF CRISIS
——o—
GÁBOR HALMAI
"ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY! AS AN ALTERNATIVE,
ANTI-DIGNITY IDENTITY IN EUROPE
This paper attempts to illuminate the impact of the spread of ‘illiberal democracy’
in Europe on the status quo of human dignity. All this has been impacted by
‘converging crises” from the not far past financial and the migration crisis to
the current, pandemic-induced health and economic crisis.* The hidden research
question behind this investigation has been, how the retreat of liberal democracy
impacted the ideal state Europe wanted to achieve after W WII, in which human
dignity is the most important governing principle, and whether only liberal
democracy can recognize dignity by guaranteeing rights on the basis of a universal
recognition of citizens as morally equals.*
I argue here that ’illiberalism’ practiced by some governments in EU Member
States does not guareantee human dignity neither to migrants nor the their own
citizens.® The main theoretical objects of this illiberal critique are the values of
Professor and Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law, European University Institute,
Florence, Italy
? Thetermis used by Rogers Brubaker, Why Populism?, Theory and Society 46 (2017), 357¬
395, 373.
See Mariana Mazzucato, Capitalism’s Triple Crisis, Project Syndicate (30 March 2020).
* See this understanding of relationship between liberal democracy and dignity in Francis
Fukuyama, Against Identity Politics Foreign Affairs, (September/October 2018). Fukuyama
argues that nationalism as the other major form of recognition of citizens driven by the fear
that immigrants are taking away national identity of the host countries threatens democracy.
Contrary to Fukuyama Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that multiculturalism is not
the main target of illiberalism, therefore it cannot be combatted by abondoning identity
politics. Ivan Krastev — Stephen Holmes, The Light that Failed: A Reckoning, London, Allen
Lane, 2019, 43. But for instance Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s emphasis of
ethnic homogeneity of the Hungarian nation proofs that illiberals fight against the concept
of a multicultural society. Viktor Orban’s Speech at the Annual General Meeting of the
Association of Cities with County Rights, 8 February 2018.
One of the latest sign of the disrespect of human dignity in one of these ’illiberal’ Member
States is the 22 October 2020 decision of the packed Polish Constitutional Tribunal on
abortion. The judges has determined that abortion due to foetal defects is unconstitutional
even in the very few cases the previous restrictive regulation allowed. According to the
reasoning this further curtailment of the human dignity of women was necessary to protect
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