On the deficient ways of understanding liberal democracy, their consequences and how to avoid them

There is a recurring narrative in the way liberal democracy is portrayed in the literature. The authors speak of two ‘strands’, ‘pillars’, ‘constitutive parts’ that make up the whole of the liberal democratic system. One part is found to be democratic, the other to be liberal. This paper argues there is high cost to adopting this model when it comes to evaluating liberal democracies, as theoretical frameworks resting on this model are ill-equipped to diagnose a crisis of liberal democracy. The structure of this paper goes as follows. In the first instance I systematise the remarks about liberal democracy’s internal duality and reconstruct them as the two-strand model which can be summarised using four characteristics: continuous independence, malleability, potential for conflict and limited proceduralism. Continuous independence is the assumption that building blocks of liberal democracy remain separate and recognisable. Malleability assumes that these building blocks are susceptible to change (can increase or diminish) and that liberal democracy has some built-in flexibility to accommodate different ratios of liberalism and democracy. Potential for conflict demands that any two-strand model accepts the possibility of the building blocks having conflicting aims or conflicting ways of realising their aims. However, the model does not need to endorse an unavoidable conflict between the two building blocks. Finally, each two-strand model will not treat liberal democracy as exclusively procedural. Purely democratic proceduralism, on these accounts, will be supplemented with some, substantive, liberal aims in any liberal democracy. Subsequently, I show that the reliance on this model is particularly problematic in evaluating the performance of liberal democracies. Specifically, I argue that any theoretical framework based on the two-strand model is unable to yield a clear delineation of a crisis, given that it presupposes the existence of an inherent and irresolvable duality at the heart of liberal democratic systems. Put differently, this model struggles to conceptually differentiate between normal, healthy readjustment of the two elements (where any conflict remains productive even if irresolvable) and the worrisome deconsolidation of the two elements (a crisis). I call this the Indeterminacy Objection. Finally, I introduce an alternative way of understanding liberal democracy. In order to locate and diagnose specific liberal democratic problems, I argue we need a conception of liberal democracy which properly acknowledges that it is a distinct political system. To that end, liberal democracy should be considered as a democratic procedure saturated by the liberal assumptions about individual autonomy and equal moral respect, rather than a mere sum of liberalism and democracy. I call this approach the compound model of liberal democracy. To conclude, I demonstrate the superiority of the compound model in determining when liberal democracy is in crisis.