Beyond Consensus: Liberal Democracy in Crisis and Alternative Pathways

Introduction

The end of the Cold War marked a period of democratic triumphalism. Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist who is known for his infamous phrase about "the end of history”, argued that socio-cultural evolution is done with liberal democracy emerging as the ultimate achievement of humanity (Fukuyama, 1989). This sentiment captured the political and social spirit of the time. However, three decades later, we are witnessing the failures and miscalculations of the rational consensus and centrist politics of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Firstly, the war on terror and the US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, most vividly depicted by the chaotic scenes of the US withdrawal in 2021, shattered the illusion of democratic peace and a unipolar world moving towards liberal democracy. Second, the economic crash of 2007-2009 exposed the long-term consequences of neoliberal deregulation and financialization. Together, these economic and geopolitical dynamics have contributed to a broader crisis of liberal democracy, as evidenced by various troubling developments.

The overall outlook on the health of democracy worldwide is not encouraging. The trend of an increasingly democratic world halted in 2009, and since then, the rise of autocratization and democratic backsliding has overshadowed the number of those living in functioning democracies (Nord et al., 2024). Beyond the general trend, perhaps the most striking manifestation of anti-establishment sentiment has been the rise of populism in traditional democracies. With figures like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has repeatedly declared the death of liberal democracy, along with former U.S. President Donald Trump, the leader of the far-right in France Marine Le Pen, and others, it is clear that democracy is in crisis. This article argues that the rational, centrist consensus of liberal democracy has marginalized the political grievances of large segments of society by dismissing them as anti-establishment. Thus, rethinking democracy is essential in order to create a space for inclusion and democratic contestation.

Figure 1 : The House of Commons, 1833 by Sir George Hayter (1833-1843). National Portrait Gallery

What is liberal democracy?

As with almost any concept in political science, particularly democracy, there is no consensus on what it truly represents. The semantic logic of the phrase "liberal democracy" suggests that it combines the concepts of democracy and liberalism. However, there are varying interpretations of how these two concepts relate and interact. First, although liberal and democratic traditions originate from different historical sources and processes, the concept can be understood as a co-originality between liberalism and democracy (Rummens, 2017). This interpretation implies that liberal democracy has evolved beyond the original conceptualizations of its constitutive parts -liberalism and democracy- and has transformed into a distinct concept. Following this argument, the position is that “liberal democracy really is just democracy” (Urbinati, 2019, p. 12), excluding the possibility of a pure democratic regime without liberal components. Consequently, no theoretical position exists that allows for the existence of pure democracy without equating it with liberal democracy as a co-original concept (Rummens, 2017).

The co-originality position significantly limits the space for a crisis of liberal democracy because it denies the possibility of separating the liberal component, which is itself a complex concept, from the democratic one. By nature, it is diarchic, clearly dividing the will and the opinion of the people. It strips away any mythological notions of “the people”, arguing that references to it transfigure democratic procedures which result in a majoritarian opinion (Urbinati, 2019). Therefore, there is no homogeneous "will of the people". Instead, there are only the preferences of the majority, which arise from democratic and institutional procedures and should not be identified with the will of the people (Rummens, 2017). In this sense, post-political consensus, centrism, rationalism, and political bargaining form majorities and minorities through institutional mechanisms, with the role of the people being secondary. However, the crisis of liberal democracy -manifested in both slowed democratization and increased autocratization, often through populism- contradicts this conceptualization. This crisis stems from grievances within portions of society because “the mainstream parties of West European party systems are no longer adequately representing their constituencies” (Kriesi, 2014, p. 373). Therefore, the very existence of the crisis suggests that the co-original conceptualization cannot fully account for it.

A critical alternative to the co-original view of liberal democracy is the conceptualization of liberal democracy as a paradox. At its core, liberal democracy is dual in nature, combining the concepts of democracy and liberalism in an agonistic relationship (Mouffe, 2018). For liberal democracy to function, there must be a balance between individual liberal values and the egalitarian nature of democracy. However, this agonistic relationship entails a constant tension between the two, where, at times, one prevails over the other. Yet, neoliberal hegemony has eliminated the tension between democratic and liberal principles by shifting the balance toward liberalism at the expense of democracy. This has led to a post-political era in which “political questions were reduced to mere technical issues to be dealt with by experts, [and] no space was left for citizens to have a real choice between different political projects” (Mouffe, 2018, p. 4). Thus, for those who feel alienated by traditional political elites, populism may not merely be a symptom of the crisis, but also a corrective, as populist political actors might be a potential tool in an attempt to restore the balance between liberalism and democracy (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013).

Figure 2: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen by Jean-Jacques François Le Barbier (1789). The Online Library of Liberty.

Deliberation: A way to salvage democracy?

However, there is one way in which the rejuvenation of democracy without rejecting central postulates of liberal democracy at the same time has been envisioned, i.e., through deliberative democracy, a model that is more representative of "who we are" (Cooke, 2017). As such, it offers a viable corrective to the current crisis facing the liberal democratic model. The most fundamental characteristic of this model is that it seeks reason-giving from free and equal actors (Gutmann & Thompson, 2004). In essence, it aims to broaden the rational and reasonable discussion promoted by liberal democratic consensus and to include the general public in that process. Indeed, active engagement in deliberation presupposes a level of participation that exceeds existing political involvement in liberal democracy, whether through civil society engagement or concrete political action.

On the one hand, deliberation requires citizens who are informed and capable of forming complex arguments, pointing to the educational purpose of deliberative democracy (Cooke, 2017). On the other hand, the role of participants in deliberation resembles direct democracy, in contrast to their current role as occasional consultants in existing forms of participation (Ryfe, 2005). These two factors highlight how deliberative democracy aims to address the lack of participation and trust in democratic procedures amid the current crisis of democracy.

Although deliberative democracy offers a solution to the estrangement of the people from the democratic system, the nature of inclusion and its aims are just as important as the inclusion itself. One of the shortcomings of the aggregate liberal democratic system is that it deliberately avoids promoting broader participation and mobilization of the people, instead seeking to aggregate interests through political parties and actors (Mouffe, 1999). It is precisely this tendency within liberal democracy that fosters an estrangement between political elites and the people, resulting in "extreme individualism," which threatens the social fabric of society. When the people’s interests are not mobilized through active political participation, they seek identification in other, often more perilous, expressions.

The deliberative model of democracy, like the aggregate model, tends to shy away from traditional forms of participation. It seeks to broaden participation, but also to transform it into a new, rational expression of consensus (Mouffe, 1999). However, Chantal Mouffe, one of the leading scholars in the field of agonistic pluralism (2018), argues that there must be a political frontier that constitutes a viable modus vivendi for opposing politically mobilized groups. She contends that the current crisis cannot be resolved by "replacing one type of rationality with another" (Mouffe, 1999, p. 10). Therefore, while liberal democracy correctly identifies the need to reinvigorate political participation and include the people in democratic procedures, it fails to account for the impossibility of consensus in pluralistic and antagonistic societies.

Figure 3: Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention by Junius Brutus Stearns (1856). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Critique of deliberation and agonistic pluralism

The fundamental principle that precludes deliberative consensus based on rationality is power, a constitutive element of any social relation, which always presupposes a level of antagonism recognized in the creation of "the other" (Jones, 2014). The creation of "the other" and the development of antagonism mark a break from any normative claims on liberal values. In fact, it is precisely through the rejection of totality that new antagonisms arise (Westphal, 2019), while the claims of reason and consensus by proponents of deliberative democracy represent that totality. When Jürgen Habermas, a German philosopher and social theorist, or John Rawls, an American philosopher in the liberal tradition, hail the deliberative model and argue in favour of deliberation and consensus, they fail to recognize that the understanding of these concepts is not total or universal, but rather deeply entrenched in hegemonic positions that involve power relations, identities, and political allegiances. Moreover, these identities and power relations are constantly changing and reasserting themselves because society is not a fixed or closed phenomenon, but is, in fact, very open-ended (Jones, 2014). This understanding of society is deeply ontological and demands a complete reconsideration of what constitutes a democratic society.

That is why agonistic pluralism, as the name of the concept suggests, argues that pluralism can only be achieved through open-ended contestation among political actors who are able to adapt to fundamentally divergent understandings of the ethical-political principles of liberal democracy (Michelsen, 2022). The central proposition here is to tame the antagonism of political enemies—those who do not regard each other as legitimate opponents—into an agonistic struggle for hegemonic creation. In other words, a democratic system can only be pluralistic if it accounts for a variety of divergent approaches to the fundamental concepts of liberal democracy without disregarding them as extra-institutional. An example is the current hegemony of neoliberal politics, which started as an economic project but eventually engulfed wider socio-cultural relations where political elites do not question the basic tenets of neoliberal economic postulates, such as deregulation and globalization (Mouffe, 2018). Thus, it cannot be considered pluralistic if it a priori excludes those who disagree with the economic or globalist agenda. Consequently, without the domestication of differing opinions on what is falsely considered universal, democracy is endangered in the long run. It is only through institutionally acceptable conflict that democracy can thrive.

The notions of "politics" and "the political" are essential concepts and best suited to account for this ontological understanding of democratic citizens in the form of agonistic pluralism. These two concepts are distinct yet fundamentally interconnected. The term "the political" refers to the entrenched aspect of human coexistence and power relations, which can manifest in various forms. "The political" is inherently part of human nature, and through these processes, people address questions of power, legitimacy, and authority. In contrast, "politics" refers to the tangible expression and articulation of "the political." It encompasses the everyday practices, strategies, and actions through which political actors engage in domesticating hostilities and antagonisms within the formal and institutionalized realm (Mouffe, 1999). The distinction between "the political" and "politics" is crucial for understanding the limitations of deliberative democracy in addressing the grievances caused by the alienation of people from the liberal democratic system.

Figure 4: The first page of the U.S. Constitution. Image by WikiImages. Pixabay.

The fact is that deliberative democracy overlooks the inherent nature of "the political" and how it drives concrete political action among the people. Therefore, a healthy dose of conflict and coexistence is essential for the creation of truly democratic citizens. Crucially, the role of agonistic pluralism is to create an "us-versus-them" dynamic in a way that establishes an "adversary" instead of an "enemy," that is, “someone whose ideas we oppose but whose right to defend those ideas we do not question” (Mouffe, 1999, p. 15).

Lastly, even though this article does not engage with the practical implications of these models but focuses on their normative and theoretical positions, it is important to note that agonistic pluralism must address some crucial practical questions.

For instance, while the leading scholar in the defense of agonistic pluralism, Chantal Mouffe, has consistently tried to incorporate modern-day populism into the narrative of agonistic pluralism, it is not entirely clear that populism represents the type of democratization and creation of identities that Mouffe proposes. That is to say, populism often defines "the people" as a closed category and exclusionary category, as opposed to Mouffe's open-ended and inclusionary discursive creation and recreation of "the people" (Michelsen, 2022).

This point leads to another issue for agonistic pluralism in practice. The potential problem in fostering radically opposed understandings of the system is that it might not be able to contain these conflicts within the institutional framework and keep them from escalating (Jones, 2014). Nevertheless, while it is important not to shy away from practical issues, agonistic pluralism still offers a radical alternative that might serve as a remedy for the current crisis of liberal democracy.

Conclusion

Agonistic democracy offers a radical rethinking of democratic politics, placing conflict, difference, and contestation at its core. It challenges the liberal pursuit of consensus and argues for a more pluralistic and open form of democracy. Rather than seeing conflict as something to be avoided or suppressed, agonistic democracy sees it as essential to democratic vitality, which is lacking in both liberal democratic and deliberative models. By translating antagonisms into concrete and institutionalized action, democratic societies can manage their differences without undermining the political process, allowing for a more inclusive and dynamic form of democracy.

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