From counter-concept to celebration: ‘Liberal democracy’ in British and French parliamentary debates, 1970s-2000s

In the last decade or so, the notion of ‘liberal democracy’ has become increasingly common, both in political discourses and academic circles. In Western countries especially, the number of calls to ‘defend liberal democracy’, in its war against ‘populists’ at home and ‘authoritarians’ abroad, is staggering. However, from a conceptual point of view, this expression can be seen as a bit oxymoronic. Historically and theoretically, there is a tension between the (absolute) exercise of popular sovereignty implicit in democracy, and in liberalism’s goal of limiting the State’s power. Most political theorists of the 19th century clearly perceived this duality: liberals were quite wary of democracy’s ‘tyrannic’ tendencies, while for socialists or anarchists, fulfilling the democratic promise meant going beyond liberalism’s elitism. In the 20th century however, this opposition seemed to recede in the conflicts with fascism and communism, ‘liberal democracy’ appearing then as an alternative, not a contradiction. While intellectual historians have traced back the origins of the notion of ‘liberal democracy’ to the 1930s in the Anglophone world, few scholars have tried to understand its later developments. Drawing from digital conceptual history, democratic theory and parliamentary studies, this paper charts the evolution of ‘liberal democracy’ from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing on political discourses and especially parliamentary debates in France and the United-Kingdom. First, I show how this notion has fared from 1968, when it was used in opposition to the emerging participatory critique of democracy as well as to ‘popular democracies’, until 1989, when it lost its main ideological opponent. Second, the analysis aims to demonstrate the transition from an hegemonic but cautious celebration to a progressive disillusion with ‘liberal democracy’ by the 2000s. In French and British political discourse, both the democratic and liberal elements of the notion are now perceived as in crisis. This dual analysis thus underscores the precarious and ever contested nature of the reconciliation of liberalism and democracy.