Back to liberal democracy

Liberal democracy is threatened by a semantic confusion maintained by populists around the very notions of “ democracy “And” liberalism ». Refound this regime in all its requirement supposes a rigorous redefinition. Justine Lacroix, professor of philosophy at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), is hitting there in a small stimulating and salutary work, which brings together the four lessons she assured at the Collège de France as a guest professor in 2023 as part of the cycle “ Europe ». His study is part of the crossing of two fields, studies on populism on the one hand, and those relating to the conditions for the exercise of democracy within the European Union on the other hand. The meeting of these two fields participates in the decompartmentalization of studies on the European Union, to which Justine Lacroix contributed throughout her career, alternating works of general political philosophy and those relating more specifically to the European Union.

Break semantic confusion

Dense, while remaining clear and pedagogical, as he began to lessons at the Collège de France, the book proceeds in four lessons. The first stigmatizes the concept of “ illiberal democracy “, Considered a contradiction in terms. Returning to philosophers often summoned to explain the difficult compatibility between democratic and liberal logics, they demonstrate on the contrary that Rousseau, Tocqueville, Constant, or even Athenian democracy, associated the two dynamics. The second lesson deconstructs the confusion around the supposed “ Authoritarian liberalism From the European Union based on an approximate amalgamation between Schmitt and certain liberals, even though Schmitt is deeply anti-liberal. The illusion of an intrinsically and exclusively neoliberal European Union is thus dissipated. The chapter concludes on an enlightening distinction of Michael Walzer, to whom Justine Lacroix had devoted part of her thesis, between liberalism and the fact of being liberal, therefore in favor of the peaceful contradictory debate. For Walzer, translated by Lacroix, the liberal fights “ For decency and truth ». The third lesson continues the work of deconstruction by denouncing the amalgam between liberalism and security policy. Relying on the work of Didier Fassin on the “ punitive moment “, It notes the sharp increase in the prison population in a context of decreasing homicide rate. She finally invites to expand the notion of “ security To understand it, in the sense of Arendt, as a delivery of fears and the need (p. 69). Finally, the fourth and last lesson extends questioning to human rights, of which it defends the relevance in coherence with its older publications, and to social justice. The work begins and ends with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights of 2000, a text as plural as the European Union, both neoliberal and protector of social-environmental principles. Without mentioning it, the book echoes Robert Salais’s reflections on the concrete application of Amartya Sen’s ideas on capacities, that is to say the possibility for an individual to be able to really get emancipated from the European Union.

Refound a demanding liberal democracy

The main contribution of the work is to reconstruct liberal democracy in all its complexity, as a regime associating popular sovereignty and law of law, individual and collective freedoms, deliberative principle and pluralism. While these elements are often distinguished, Justine Lacroix merges them into a whole consubstantial.

Without locking up in a discussion on the “ populism “, And the confusion he arouses, Justine Lacroix deconstructs some of the arguments of her supporters. It notably shows the inanity of the concept of a homogeneous people, because “ A people is a society, it does not form a block “(P. 23) and” What defines democracy is not homogeneity, but equal rights which includes freedom (P. 24). The observation could apply to the recent French elections, during which the popular vote was plural, exploded mainly between the Rn,, LFI and abstainers, and ripened by various dynamics. Likewise, Justine Lacroix participates in the debate on the European Union without euphemizing it: the neoliberal excesses of the Greek crisis are not denied, but they are treated for what they are, the expression of a majority of European governments (then intoxicated by a kind of austeritarian fever), and not the dictatorship of an isolated technocracy. Jürgen Habermas spoke of the excesses of a “ post-democratic executive federalism Insufficiently based on collective deliberation. This example clearly shows that democracy cannot be reduced to procedures, even the vote, but must be exercised through a vigorous public space.

The historical reality of the “ illiberal democracy »»

The stigma of the use of the concept of “ illiberal democracy Asked, however. Admittedly, the intellectual demonstration to which Justine Lacroix engages to demonstrate the inanity of the concept, both theoretically and the history of ideas, is impeccable. However, this concept of “illiberal democracy”, since it was claimed by Viktor Orban, has become an ideologically structured political movement. He even has a messianic character since he is led to school in a sort of conservative counter-revolution in the world. It must therefore be analyzed as a historical event, even if it constitutes a “ perversion From the idea of ​​democracy (P. Rosanvallon, cited p. 25). It is based on a hemiplegic version of liberal democracy, without the deliberative, contradictory and plural aspect which is consubstantial as Justine Lacroix shows. He associates nativist, macho, authoritarian, sometimes combining with shameless economic neoliberalism at Orban, Trump or Bolsonaro. This program extends to several European countries, so much so that it could influence the European Union. The Hungarian Presidency of the European Union of the second half of 2024 began under the aegis of a Europeanized Trumpian slogan, “Make Europe Great Again”, a sign of transnational exchanges between the various supporters, claimed or not, of “illiberal democracy”. Even a country known for its moderation and its parliamentarism, the United Kingdom, has been threatened. The most radical Brexiters have viturated against the obstacles to popular sovereignty supposed to be embodied only in Parliament: European Union law, but also various European and international conventions protecting human rights and even the very recent British Supreme Court, which had rejected the first version of law expelling certain asylum seekers in Rwanda. The concept of “ illiberal democracy So keep a heuristic power to describe a contemporary dynamic.

This brilliant work naturally calls for extensions, in particular to shed light on the combination of the logics of representative democracy with those of a protean law, due to the multiplicity of contradictory deliberative procedures and possible remedies in the name of different principles such as the protection of human rights, the environment, heritage, or the limitation of deficit – as many sometimes difficult principles. Faced with this complexity, new forms of participatory and deliberative democracy must be invented and combined with older forms, more than substituted for them. It supposes a listened and active citizen, and not passive-agressive, following the call launched by Karl Jaspers in 1948, and quoted by Justine Lacroix: “ Political freedom begins when, in the majority of the people, the individual feels responsible for the community of the community to which he belongs, when he does not just claim and protest, when he rather requires to see reality as it is ».