Liberal democracy, the form of governance which has grown to dominate the Western world since the end of the Second World War, is a philosophy that represents the culmination of thousands of years of historical development. It is also a form of government that is under assault by authoritarian and ultranationalist movements.
A democracy is a governmental system where the population of the state decides their own leadership/representatives and, in some cases, policies. It’s “the consent of the governed.” It mingles direct forms of democracy (citizen presence, citizen participation) with more indirect forms (representatives or surrogates are delegated power by the people). However, for a democracy to be considered a liberal democracy, it typically must meet a few other criteria. One such is that a liberal democratic government must have a system of checks and balances in place that ensures that one governmental leader (or party or branch) does not gain outsized control. Liberal democracies tend to guarantee their citizens set “unalienable” rights – rights that are guaranteed and may not (easily) be taken away. In this way, a liberal democracy also protects its individual citizens from majoritarianism/tyranny of the majority, where a group that is in the majority uses its power in a democracy to control or oppress a minority. Liberal democracies believe in constitutions, where powers and rights are enumerated.
The United States of America is typically considered to be the first country to have adopted liberal democracy as the basis of its government, although it did not permit, initially, a majority of its population (including non-white people, women, and non-land owners) to participate in this new system until over a century following its founding. Outside of one civil war, ideas and institutions had to be transformed by debate, discussion, advocacy and voting. It is a combination of a number of aspects of the United States Constitution that made the U.S. a strong liberal democracy in the 18th century following the ratification of that Constitution. The United States was the first modern democracy, establishing a novel system of government with three branches – executive, legislative, and judicial – a historical first. The checks and balances of this new system ensured that neither the president nor legislature took too much power. It put into writing a set of rights, known as the Bill of Rights, which were to be guaranteed to people (not just citizens) living in the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States (and judicial branch generally speaking) was created as a check on the democratically elected figures within the state, ensuring that no matter what laws or actions the legislature and president attempt to put forth, the courts would interpret and enforce their “constitutionality,” as the law of the land.
It is, however, possible in the case of a substantial legislative and state majority to make new amendments to the Constitution and repeal existing ones in accordance with Article V. So while they are not technically fully “unalienable,” the rights granted in the United States Constitution are here to stay. The ability to undo any part of the Constitution with a massive and diverse majority of members of Congress and states is one example of how the framers of the Constitution tried to strike certain balances, in this case balancing the will of the people with preserving the most basic structures of government and fundamental rights. At the Constitutional Convention, the American system of government was systematically planned with the intention that American democracy would last in the face of all kinds of different threats. This new state was established in a way like no other before it. It is this setup of the American government – the checks and balances, protection for individual liberties, prevention of majoritarian rule, a limit on the power of the state, democratic election system, etc. – that made the United States the world’s first liberal democracy.
The liberal democratic systems of the American Constitution did not come out of nowhere. Indeed while the idea of democracy originated in Ancient Athens (though it is possible there were other democratic civilizations that existed earlier) American liberal democracy was a unique product of The Age of Reason, The Enlightenment, and The Age of Revolution, part of a new trend away from monarchy and aristocracy. It was associated with the anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism that emerged out of the British colonial and parliamentary system of which it was a part.
Some parliamentarians and constitutionalists would argue that the first event where an early liberal idea would begin to develop would be at the issuance of the Magna Carta in England in 1215. This revolutionary charter established for the first time in history the idea that the king and his will were not above the law, and that it was law itself that ultimately reigned supreme. Though it didn’t make England a democracy, the document established that taxes could not simply be levied by the king randomly, but had to be agreed upon to some degree by Parliament (albeit one mostly comprised of aristocrats). Hence the Magna Carta began the gradual development of a parliamentary system in England, pushing forth the first checks on the king in England, though the country would remain a mostly-absolute monarchy for centuries. These systems continued progressing as the years went on in England.
As the Enlightenment began in the mid 17th century, brand new ideas and theories started to emerge as a number of important political philosophers began to publish writings. One such philosopher was John Locke, an Englishman whose ideas form much of the basis of modern liberalism. Locke wrote, among other things, that government ought to be limited, and that it was the duty of government to ensure its citizens are guaranteed a set of inviolable rights. While such suggestions may not sound particularly controversial nowadays, they were revolutionary at the time. His ideas greatly influenced the writing of the 1689 English Bill of Rights, another major development in the history of liberalism, which put into law a number of important rights and liberties for the first time. The framers of the American Bill of Rights, which appeared a century later, largely took inspiration from this English document, using, for example, almost the exact wording of the English Bill of Rights for the 8th Amendment.
Following the birth of the United States, the next country to adopt liberal democracy was France, following its notorious revolution in the late 18th century. The words “libertié, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity) came about in this period, famously demonstrating the ideals some revolutionaries saw as fundamental to this new liberal democratic France. However, unlike American liberal democracy, that of France fell just as quickly as it began. Democratization gave way to extreme ideologies and behaviors. The French revolutionaries began to consume their own children. The revolutionary chaos ended with Napoleon Bonaparte subordinating democracy to nationalist ambitions under his own personalized power. Sometimes, it is argued, in 9th grade history classes, that French history is the story of the battle between democratic impulses and authoritarian rule.
It is important to also note that liberal democracies had and have major problems. Many liberal democratic countries participated in the violent system of colonialism, one that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions. Extreme racism has similarly played a major role in the decision making process of most of these nations, with histories marked by racial hierarchy and domination. Through the years, however, these countries have tried to reckon with their dark histories and change for the better, as liberal democracies ought to do. Though far from perfect to this day, liberal democracy has shown historically to be quite a successful political philosophy. Still it has had and does have its haters .
Following the end of the First World War, there were powerful backlashes against parliaments and democracies. In addition to overthrowing Tsarism, Communism in Russia also sought to destroy the seeds of democracy, a key part of capitalism. Fascism in Italy served as a kind of backlash against the failure of democracy to win a war and bring economic security. Nazism in Germany assaulted democracy as an inherently un-German idea. The Nazis and others blamed democracy to some extent for the German defeat in World War I. To restore German greatness, they felt democracy had to be overthrown. When the Nazis failed to do that in the streets, they turned to other strategies of gaining power, with voting, ironically enough, being their main focus. Once in power, Adolf Hitler, killed off liberal democracy in Weimar Germany. Hitler proved that liberal democracies, even those with seemingly strong checks and balances, are vulnerable, and in times of crisis, democracy can quickly decline into totalitarian dictatorship. In our contemporary world, threats to liberal democratic systems are certainly present and even growing across the globe, coming from a wide variety of sources.
Indeed in our modern days attempts have been made, some successful, to dismantle liberal democracy in certain countries. In Hungary, for example, Viktor Orbán and his radical right-wing party Fidesz have managed to turn that country from the liberal democracy it once was into, as Orbán himself proudly described it, an “illiberal” state. Using an excessively large legislative majority his party gained in parliamentary elections, Orbán pushed through a number of changes that reduced checks on his leadership while increasing the power of the state. He turned the Hungarian Supreme Court from an independent body to one in service to the prime minister. He further removed government and public oversight while also creating a state-run press authority with the ability to penalize media outlets and journalists; the members of the board of this press authority are appointed by the prime minister. Orbán even changed his country’s election procedure to favor his own party. Hungary is a prime example of how fragile liberal democracies can be in the face of large legislative majorities, especially in a parliamentary system like Hungary’s, one which is shared by much of Europe. Orbán also provided a potential roadmap for how to de-liberalize a state and place more power in the hands of a leader and his supporters. Orbán also seeks to spread his ideas outside of just Hungary, becoming a kind of figurehead for the illiberal movement in Central Europe and beyond.
El Salvador is another case where a leader backed by a large democratic majority has managed to change the fundamental systems of government. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has radically transformed his country in a multitude of ways. His chief accomplishment has been drastically reducing the crime rate in his country, a nation that was formerly one of the most dangerous on Earth. However, Bukele was only able to do this by arresting residents of his country suspected of being gang members en masse. He has placed his country into what is essentially a state of emergency for two years, all in order to suspend a number of constitutional rights and allow these mass arrests to take place. While this has worked at its intended goal, and many of those imprisoned are indeed the criminals that have been terrorizing the people of El Salvador for years, many are not. Due to the lack of regard for the full legal process, a number of innocent Salvadorans have been arrested. And whether or not the prisoners are guilty, they are still being treated in a way contrary to international law and basic human rights, as the government of El Salvador overcrowds prisons and uses methods such as torture on prisoners. Despite this, Bukele has proven to be extremely popular in his country, winning around 84% of the vote in the recent February 2024 presidential election. His party, Nuevas Ideas, also holds 54 of 60 seats in the legislative assembly of El Salvador. So, while daily life for the majority of Salvadorans may have improved, the liberal democracy of that country has largely faded away. As a result, were the power to get to Bukele’s head – more than it already has, that is, given his references to himself as “the World’s Coolest Dictator” – and his intentions to become more malevolent, there would be few to no systems in place to prevent his will from becoming a reality, allowing him to do as he pleases.
While the situations like those of El Salvador and Hungary are far more pressing for those nations and their democracies than the issues of the United States are for us, we certainly have no shortage of challenges to democracy afoot. One of the largest such threats is a lack of confidence in the democratic system. Following the loss of Donald Trump in the 2020 election, claims that the election had been “stolen” and the American electoral system compromised began to circulate. Indeed much of this came from the very political leadership of the country, many of whom pushed forth these baseless claims. Donald Trump himself continues to refuse to accept that he lost the election, a first for any modern American presidential candidate (Samuel Tilden of the 1876 election is the most similar case to Trump’s, though that election genuinely did involve voter fraud, but on both sides). Trump’s refusal led to the violent attempt to overrule the results of the election on January 6, 2021. This particular problem of election denial remains vast, as tens of millions of Americans continue to believe that the election was “rigged,” and likely would find it difficult to accept another Trump loss. Confidence in democracy is imperative to a nation’s health, but it is a historical constant which is increasingly threatened.
Through these issues we must remember that unlike the systems of Hungary and El Salvador, the American system is one that has stood the test of time. It is one that has, over the course of the centuries, been steadily improved. Indeed the American national consciousness has been hugely influenced by our Constitution and emphasis on certain ideals, one such being liberal democracy. So while current issues and threats may seem particularly pressing, we ought to take comfort in the fact that the system under which Americans live has been built up over the course of more than two centuries with the primary objective of defending the rights of Americans to live, as Lincoln put it in his famous Gettysburg Address, under a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Such is the point of having a liberal democracy. A liberal democracy is built to last.
The system of the United States was created with the knowledge that certain challenges would almost definitely come about in the future, thanks to prior knowledge of human nature and history. That is why it was created in the way it was – to simultaneously counteract both tyrannical autocratic and majoritarian rule. Hundreds of years of development have been used to try and establish “a more perfect union.” So while it may seem to be at one of its most divided times in history, the United States has withstood many great tests, thanks to its liberal democracy, and will likely withstand many more.
