Defending Democracy Politically

In Europe, liberal democracy is challenged by non-liberal-democratic parties (NLDPs) which have a problematic view of key aspects of liberal democratic government and politics, such as pluralism, legitimate opposition, independent (public) media and certain types of individual rights and the institutions that secure them notably the separation of powers and an independent judiciary. Several types of responses to threats to liberal democracy have been and are currently considered. Legal responses in the form of prohibition of certain types of propaganda, prosecution for racism, prohibition of parties; cultural responses in the form of civic education, publicly sponsored anti-discrimination campaigns and campaigns for the promotion of civic values; socio-economic measures to ensure material conditions that will make it less likely that citizens will turn to extremist and populist parties. These measures are generally measures that reflect public policy in the sense that they rest on formal government decisions to sanction on the basis of legislation or promote with public money. A final type of measures is political responses. They generally do not rely on formal government decision but on the decisions of political parties collectively or individually to exclude or collaborate with NLDPs. In that sense they are not based on government hierarchy and ultimately on the use of coercion, but on the reactions from what are formally the political peers of NLDPs. Especially legal, but also cultural and socio-economic measures have been criticised for not being consistent with liberal-democracy’s own principles because they are seen as involving delimitation of the democratic rights of some citizens and/or as expressing disrespect of certain groups of citizens as not being free and equal citizens. This paper discusses the liberal-democratic quality of political responses to NLDPs. Of particular interest is what the normative issues from a liberal-democratic point of view may be with regard to the three different political responses: 1) exclusion; 2) collaboration or 3) co-optation by mainstream political parties of the some of the policy positions of NLDPs, for example anti-immigration policies, in order to weaken the latter vis-à-vis the electorate. These responses will be discussed in light of the ‘ethics of compromise’ including whether the compromising or not compromising with NLDPs will make mainstream parties guilty of violating their own integrity and that of liberal democracy.