Page 116 [116]
114 | Anna Unger
the source of the contemporary disenchantment with democracy. Disappointment is
an almost inevitable consequence of a distrustful citizenry. (Rosanvallon 2008, 254)
These endogenous problems of liberal democracy are excellently summarized
by Timothy Snyder in his book The Road to Unfreedom. He explains that the
then-fashionable idea of the end of history and the supposed ultimate victory
of liberal democracy at the millennium also created
the politics of inevitability, a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the
laws of the progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing
really to be done. In the American capitalist version of this story, nature brought
the market, which brought democracy, which brought happiness. In the European
version, history brought the nation, which learned from war that peace was good,
and hence chose integration and prosperity (Snyder 2018, 7).
The politics of inevitability means that “there is no alternative” (Snyder 2018,
15), social and political development has a single way to proceed, and progress
is literally inevitable. This echoes the idea and practice of technocracy, where
the skilled and educated elites are responsible for the complex governance,
but also points to its democratic deficit: there are no alternative means and
there is no need for democracy, as there are no choices — options to vote for
and against - anymore.
b. Exogenous challenges of liberal democracy:
illiberalism and populism
As with populism, illiberal tendencies have also been widely studied in
contemporary political science. The famous article The Rise of Illiberal
Democracy by Fareed Zakaria has been followed by a huge number of writings
about democratic decline, democratic backsliding, and the hybridisation and
autocratisation of politics. Many different aspects of these tendencies have
been elaborated on. Here, instead of summing up all of these, which would
be mission impossible, we will focus on a single stream in this debate, which
hopefully reveals the different aspects of the matter.
In his well-known article, Zakaria stated that “constitutional liberalism
has led to democracy, but democracy does not seem to bring constitutional
liberalism” (Zakaria 1997, 28). In his view, many developing democracies
became illiberal, where liberties and the rule of law are less respected than
in developed ones. Though he does not state that American-, or Western¬
style liberal democracy is the only possible democratic system, he claims that
this is the most developed one, as no other system guarantees the same kind
of balance between the peoples will, which must be the platform of popular
government, and securing civil liberties.