Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal democracy are: elections between or among multiple distinct political parties; a separation of powers into different branches of government; the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society; a market economy with private property; universal suffrage; and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all citizens. Substantive democracy refers to substantive rights and substantive laws, which can include substantive equality, the equality of outcome for subgroups in society. Liberal democracy emphasizes the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and a system of checks and balances between branches of government. Multi-party systems with at least two persistent, viable political parties are characteristic of liberal democracies.
Governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. A liberal democracy may take various and mixed constitutional forms: it may be a constitutional monarchy or a republic. It may have a parliamentary system, presidential system, or semi-presidential system. Liberal democracies are contrasted with illiberal democracies and dictatorships. Some liberal democracies, especially those with large populations, use federalism in order to prevent abuse and increase public input by dividing governing powers between municipal, provincial and national governments. The characteristics of liberal democracies are correlated with increased political stability, lower corruption, better management of resources, and better health indicators such as life expectancy and infant mortality.
Liberal democracy traces its origins—and its name—to the Age of Enlightenment. The conventional views supporting monarchies and aristocracies were challenged at first by a relatively small group of Enlightenment intellectuals, who believed that human affairs should be guided by reason and principles of liberty and equality. They argued that all people are created equal, that governments exist to serve the people—not vice versa—and that laws should apply to those who govern as well as to the governed, formulated in Europe as Rechtsstaat. In England, thinkers such as John Locke argued that all people are created equal, that governments exist to serve the governed, and that laws must apply equally to rulers and citizens alike. At the same time, on the European continent, French philosophers developed equally influential theories: Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws advanced the doctrine of separation of powers, Rousseau's The Social Contract articulated the principle of popular sovereignty and the "general will", and Voltaire championed freedom of conscience and expression. These ideas were central to the French Revolution and spread widely across Europe and beyond. They also influenced the American Revolution and the broader development of liberal democracy. After a period of expansion in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy became a prevalent political system in the world.

Origins

Liberal democracy traces its origins—and its name—to 18th-century Europe, during the Age of Enlightenment. At the time, the vast majority of European states were monarchies, with political power held either by the monarch or the aristocracy. The possibility of democracy had not been a seriously considered political theory since classical antiquity and the widely held belief was that democracies would be inherently unstable and chaotic in their policies due to the changing whims of the people. It was further believed that democracy was contrary to human nature, as human beings were seen to be inherently evil, violent and in need of a strong leader to restrain their destructive impulses. Many European monarchs held that their power had been ordained by God and that questioning their right to rule was tantamount to blasphemy.
These conventional views were challenged at first by a relatively small group of Enlightenment intellectuals, who believed that human affairs should be guided by reason and principles of liberty and equality. They argued that all people are created equal and therefore political authority cannot be justified on the basis of noble blood, a supposed privileged connection to God or any other characteristic that is alleged to make one person superior to others. They further argued that governments exist to serve the people—not vice versa—and that laws should apply to those who govern as well as to the governed.
Some of these ideas began to be expressed in England in the 17th century. There was renewed interest in Magna Carta, and passage of the Petition of Right in 1628 and Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 established certain liberties for subjects. The idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647. After the English Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689, which codified certain rights and liberties. The Bill set out the requirement for regular elections, rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that, unlike almost all of Europe at the time, royal absolutism would not prevail. This led to significant social change in Britain in terms of the position of individuals in society and the growing power of Parliament in relation to the monarch.
By the late 18th century, leading philosophers of the day had published works that spread around the European continent and beyond. One of the most influential of these philosophers was English empiricist John Locke, who refuted monarchical absolutism in his Two Treatises of Government. According to Locke, individuals entered into a social contract with a state, surrendering some of their liberties in exchange for the protection of their natural rights. Locke advanced that governments were only legitimate if they maintained the consent of the governed and that citizens had the right to instigate a rebellion against their government if that government acted against their interests. These ideas and beliefs influenced the American Revolution and the French Revolution, which gave birth to the philosophy of liberalism and instituted forms of government that attempted to put the principles of the Enlightenment philosophers into practice.
When the first prototypical liberal democracies were founded, the liberals themselves were viewed as an extreme and rather dangerous fringe group that threatened international peace and stability. The conservative monarchists who opposed liberalism and democracy saw themselves as defenders of traditional values and the natural order of things and their criticism of democracy seemed vindicated when Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the young French Republic, reorganized it into the first French Empire and proceeded to conquer most of Europe. Napoleon was eventually defeated and the Holy Alliance was formed in Europe to prevent any further spread of liberalism or democracy; nonetheless, liberal democratic ideals soon became widespread among the general population and over the 19th century traditional monarchy was forced on a continuous defensive and withdrawal. The Dominions of the British Empire became laboratories for liberal democracy from the mid 19th century onward. In Canada, responsible government began in the 1840s and in Australia and New Zealand, parliamentary government elected by male suffrage and secret ballot was established from the 1850s and female suffrage achieved from the 1890s.
File:Stahlberg-in-office1919.jpg|thumb|K. J. Ståhlberg, the first President of the Republic of Finland, defined Finland's anchoring as a country defending liberal democracy. Ståhlberg at his office in 1919.
Reforms and revolutions helped move most European countries towards liberal democracy. Liberalism ceased being a fringe opinion and joined the political mainstream. At the same time, a number of non-liberal ideologies developed that took the concept of liberal democracy and made it their own. The political spectrum changed; traditional monarchy became more and more a fringe view and liberal democracy became more and more mainstream. By the end of the 19th century, liberal democracy was no longer only a liberal idea, but an idea supported by many different ideologies. After World War I and especially after World War II, liberal democracy achieved a dominant position among theories of government and is now endorsed by the vast majority of the political spectrum.
Although liberal democracy was originally put forward by Enlightenment liberals, the relationship between democracy and liberalism has been controversial since the beginning and was problematized in the 20th century. In his book Freedom and Equality in a Liberal Democratic State, Jasper Doomen posited that freedom and equality are necessary for a liberal democracy. In his book The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama says that since the French Revolution, liberal democracy has repeatedly proven to be a fundamentally better system than any of the alternatives, and that democracy will become more and more prevalent in the long term, although it may suffer temporary setbacks. The research institute Freedom House today simply defines liberal democracy as an electoral democracy also protecting civil liberties.

Rights and freedoms

Political freedom is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies. Political freedom was described as freedom from oppression or coercion, the absence of disabling conditions for an individual and the fulfillment of enabling conditions, or the absence of life conditions of compulsion, e.g. economic compulsion, in a society. Although political freedom is often interpreted negatively as the freedom from unreasonable external constraints on action, it can also refer to the positive exercise of rights, capacities and possibilities for action and the exercise of social or group rights. The concept can also include freedom from internal constraints on political action or speech. The concept of political freedom is closely connected with the concepts of civil liberties and human rights, which in democratic societies are usually afforded legal protection from the state.
Laws in liberal democracies may limit certain freedoms. The common justification for these limits is that they are necessary to guarantee the existence of democracy, or the existence of the freedoms themselves. For example, democratic governments may impose restrictions on free speech, with examples including Holocaust denial and hate speech. Some discriminatory behavior may be prohibited. For example, public accommodations in the United States may not discriminate on the basis of "race, color, religion, or national origin." There are various legal limitations such as copyright and laws against defamation. There may be limits on anti-democratic speech, on attempts to undermine human rights and on the promotion or justification of terrorism. In the United States more than in Europe during the Cold War, such restrictions applied to communists; now, they are more commonly applied to organizations perceived as promoting terrorism or the incitement of group hatred. Examples include anti-terrorism legislation, the shutting down of Hezbollah satellite broadcasts and some laws against hate speech. Critics argue that these limitations may go too far and that there may be no due and fair judicial process. Opinion is divided on how far democracy can extend to include the enemies of democracy in the democratic process. If relatively small numbers of people are excluded from such freedoms for these reasons, a country may still be seen as a liberal democracy. Some argue that this is only quantitatively different from autocracies that persecute opponents, since only a small number of people are affected and the restrictions are less severe, but others emphasize that democracies are different. At least in theory, opponents of democracy are also allowed due process under the rule of law.
Since it is possible to disagree over which rights are considered fundamental, different countries may treat particular rights in different ways. For example:

The constitutions of Canada, India, Israel, Mexico and the United States guarantee freedom from double jeopardy, a right not provided in some other legal systems.
Legal systems that use politically elected court jurors, such as Sweden, view a politicized court system as a main component of accountable government. Other democracies employ trial by jury with the intent of shielding against the influence of politicians over trials.

Liberal democracies usually have universal suffrage, granting all adult citizens the right to vote regardless of ethnicity, sex, property ownership, race, age, sexuality, gender, income, social status, or religion; some countries historically regarded as liberal democracies have had a more limited franchise. Even in the 21st century, some countries, considered to be liberal democracies, do not have truly universal suffrage. In some countries, members of political organizations with connections to historical totalitarian governments may be deprived of the vote and the privilege of holding certain jobs. In the United Kingdom, people serving long prison sentences are unable to vote, a policy that has been ruled a human rights violation by the European Court of Human Rights. A similar policy is also enacted in most of the United States. According to a study by Coppedge and Reinicke, at least 85% of democracies provided for universal suffrage. Many nations require positive identification before allowing people to vote. For example, in the United States two thirds of the states require their citizens to provide identification to vote, which also provide state IDs for free. The decisions made through elections are made by those who are members of the electorate and who choose to participate by voting.
In 1971, Robert Dahl summarized the fundamental rights and freedoms shared by all liberal democracies as eight rights:

Freedom to form and join organizations.
Freedom of expression.
Right to vote.
Right to run for public office.
Right of political leaders to compete for support and votes.
Freedom of alternative sources of information
Free and fair elections.
Right to control government policy through votes and other expressions of preference.