liberal democracy needs to create narratives

This week Slovenia’s ruling liberals defeated populists in a photo-finish election: 

Golob sought to frame the election in an interview with POLITICO as a choice between liberal democratic values and Janša’s Hungary-style illiberalism. 

What is Illiberal democracy?

Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, gave an oft-cited speech in 2014 where he proclaimed Hungary an illiberal democracy, stating that "a democracy does not necessarily have to be liberal" and that "the new state we are constructing in Hungary is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state." Modern advocates of illiberal democracy insist they are more democratic than others, and generally define themselves as being against liberal democracy, the West, and the United States. Vladimir Putin of Russia is an outspoken critic of liberalism, with him and Orban described as redefining it in ways that suit their agendas by equating it with multiculturalism, immigration, and LGBTQ rights.[21] The election of Donald Trump saw a large increase in scholarly research about illiberalism, what it means, and heavy debates on whether or not America is on the road to fascism.[22]

A question facing liberal democracies is how to counter propaganda/paranoia/conspiracy theories.

There are all sorts of suggested ways ahead, such as we should enjoy culture and the arts, that we should try and counter it with the same, and that we need to use reliable, evidence-based and non-partisan journalism.

One commentator who has suggested many of these strategies is the writer and academic Peter Pomerantsev - and one of his most powerful books has been a look at the propaganda and paranoia of the last two decades. There's a fabulous interview with him on his Nothing is True and Everything is Possible.

Today, liberal democracy is struggling even more.

We have been seeing the emergence of competing visions of international order - with the fracturing of the US-led liberal international order [March 2025]

And this month, the Swedish V-|Dem has published a report saying we are in danger of losing Liberal Democracy;

On March 17th, the Swedish-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute released its 2026 annual Democracy Report titled “Unraveling the Democratic Era?” with an aptly themed cover image: a tattered, threadbare American flag with the acronym “S.O.S.” spray-painted across its stripes. “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history,” the report writes. Within a year of the second Trump Administration, executive aggrandizement has severely weakened checks and balances and displayed astonishing disregard for the rule of law. No longer is the United States a pillar of liberal democracy – rather, for the first time in fifty years, it is slipping towards a democratic grey zone.

The press has covered it as: ‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’. That’s the verdict of the world’s most credible democracy watchdog.

Since 2012, Lindberg has led his small group of researchers in Sweden to become the world’s leading source for analysis of the health of global democracy. In their latest report, published on Tuesday, they conclude that the US, for the first time in more than half a century, has lost its long-term status as a liberal democracy. The country is now going through a rapid process of what the report’s authors call “autocratisation”.

“For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years, for Vučić in Serbia, it took eight years, and for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, it took about 10 years to accomplish the suppression of democratic institutions that Trump has achieved in only one year,” Lindberg says.

US democracy is now back at the worst recorded level since 1965, when US civil rights laws first introduced de facto universal suffrage. All progress made since then has been erased, according to the report.

Worldwide, democracy has receded to its lowest levels since the mid-70s. “The world has never before seen as many countries autocratising at the same time,” Lindberg says.

A record 41% (3.4 billion) of the world’s population currently resides in countries where democracy is deteriorating, the report claims, adding that Washington is leading this global turn away from democracy.

The researchers use 48 different metrics to assess democratic health, such as the freedom of expression and the media, the quality of elections and the observance of the rule of law. The resulting “liberal democracy index” shows that the speed with which US democracy is being dismantled is unprecedented in modern history. The main factor is a “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency”, Lindberg says. Congress has been marginalised, jeopardising the “checks and balances” (judicial and legislative constraints on the executive) so crucial to US democracy. At the same time, civil rights have been rapidly declining and freedom of expression is now at its lowest level since the 1940s.

Many commentators would say that liberal democracy needs to create narratives.

Including the idea that Liberal Democracy Needs A Story - by Dan Gardner:

Putin and Xi and Trump have their stories. So do Erdogan, Modi, Orban, and all the other reactionaries who have put freedom into headlong retreat. They are full of passionate intensity, to borrow from Yeats, while the best lack all conviction. But history, as they say, repeats, or at least rhymes. And ours is not the first era in which liberal democracy seemed to be on a terminal decline.

Others agree that democracy needs a narrative on political liberalism:

For the protection and continued existence of democracy in general and throughout the world, it is important to revive a narrative on what constitutes a liberal democracy. Here, it will be vital to reclaim the normative appeal of liberal democracy.

This appeal lies in the fact that individuals in non-liberal societies are always subjected to the prevailing majority doctrine, be it of a religious or other nature. In contrast, liberal democracies allow for a society in which the diversity of human experience, ways of life and life choices is possible without fear of being exposed to social, economic or political repression. Of all the political systems that we know, liberal democracy is the one that comes closest to the thought experiment designed by the liberal philosopher John Rawls referred to as the ‘veil of ignorance’. In this thought experiment, the future members of a society have to decide on a social order but do not know which position they will have in this society – so the best order is one in which everyone is protected against the arbitrary exercise of power by others.

Finally, some would call this The Age of Fortress Liberalism:

Some liberal theorists have tried to find comfort in the fortress mentality. The scholar and former politician Michael Ignatieff argues that liberal societies fight better when they understand that they are in danger. Drawing on the thought of Isaiah Berlin, Ignatieff argues “it will be up to the embattled fortresses of liberal democracy, and the conviction of their peoples, if liberty is to prevail.” Illiberal threats should strengthen liberals’ resolve to make hard choices.

Early liberal theorists grappled with the limits of universalizing their own principles. Baruch Spinoza, in suggesting a liberal ethos of tolerance, demanded liberal societies restrict teachings or religions which “tend to produce obstinacy, hatred, strife or anger.” When Jean-Jacques Rousseau imagined society coming together around a civil religion, he said such a religion would only be intolerant of just one thing: intolerance. When courts restrict democracy in the name of the rule of law or liberals insist on fast-paced assimilation, they draw on a tradition which has recognized that liberalism relies on basic shared principles to work...

The practical strategy of reinventing liberalism as the preserve of besieged, sensible, Europeans is a difficult balancing act, because liberalism has always relied on the promise of future extension to rally its adherents. Similarly, once liberals lose confidence that their vision will inexorably spread by democratic, nonviolent means, they fall into the same “might makes right” logic as the illiberal ideologies in opposition to which they define themselves.

Today, the stronger future project belongs to the populist right, which promises a more homogeneous, child-rearing, religious, and nationalistic Europe. While these politicians have their own foibles, their adherents share a confidence that Europe’s mainstream has sorely lacked for almost a decade. Even if largely nostalgic, the populist vision of the future speaks to the experiences of Europeans today. For those outside the establishment, it is easier to believe in than in a fortress under siege.

To be sure, there are attempts to replace the liberal siege mentality with something more expansive and forward-looking: efforts like the “abundance” idea and its adaptations in Europe, or the effort to make affordability the central promise of a populist left. But so far, these movements have not had large electoral breakthroughs, in part because they have not gone beyond the fortress liberals on fundamental questions. On defense, immigration, and the threat of the far-right, abundance liberals and populist leftists remain cadets within the fortress.

The rise of fortress liberalism makes clear that European leaders still imagine their present challenges as temporary. Our leaders and our societies have not yet internalized the possibility of a return to the constant warring or the ceaseless inter-ethnic violence that defined pre-twentieth century Europe. In the minds of the world’s most powerful liberals, their task is to survive the siege day-to-day, whatever adaptations that requires. Retreating to the fortress has deprived them of any vision of what to create next, should “normalcy” return. Practicing this lost art of imagination may make for a stronger defense than Europe’s liberals have yet been able to muster.

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