Ghosts of Liberalism Past

Abstract

Abstract A systematic intellectual and political campaign is now under way to portray a clear-cut divide between “liberal democracy” and the mingled forces of authoritarianism and nationalism. As a picture of the longue durée of the past two and a half centuries, this portrait is largely false; and even today, it obscures as much as it illuminates. As a reformist ideology dedicated to smashing inherited traditions and institutions in the name of progress, liberalism has long been highly dependent not just on existing state powers but often on greatly expanded and widened state authority. Liberal programs also depended on the expanded powers of new national states, which in turn depended on nationalism for their legitimacy and mass support. For much of the twentieth century, the linkages between liberalism, authoritarianism, and nationalism were in abeyance in the West; in recent decades, however, these linkages have re-emerged and are likely to grow stronger.