Abstract
This chapter deals with emerging illiberal challenges—international and domestic—and their impact on the current state and prospects of liberalism, particularly in Russia. Is the liberal world order in peril and, if so, how grave is the threat? Has liberalism really failed ideologically speaking and in terms of policy? As happened during the New Deal, can liberalism in general—and Russian liberalism in particular—be “rebooted” conceptually and programmatically in response to pressing challenges? What are the fundamental issues of the liberal ideological and political agenda that need to be reevaluated? How can modern liberalism be “reset”? These are some of the fundamental issues addressed in this chapter. It provides a tentative typology of today’s illiberal challenges, a conceptual differentiation between the institutional and normative aspects of the global liberal world order, an analysis of the political and ideological context that may, at least partly, explain the miseries Russian liberals experience at the present moment, and also a tentative blueprint for the path forward of liberalism in non-liberal Russia.
This research is supported by the Russian Science Foundation under grant no.17-18-01651, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
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Notes
- 1.
Michael J. Abramowitz, Freedom in the World 2018: Democracy in Crisis, Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018)
- 2.
Robin Niblett, “Liberalism in Retreat. The Demise of a Dream”, Foreign Affairs 96, no. 1, 2017, p. 18.
- 3.
Ronald Inglehart, “The Age of Insecurity. Can Democracy Save Itself?”, Foreign Affairs 97, no. 3, 2018, pp. 20–28.
- 4.
See Steven Levitsky and David Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Crown, 2018); Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018); Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (New York: Grove Press, 2017).
- 5.
Ivan Krastev, “Eastern Europe’s Illiberal Revolution. The Long Road to Democratic Decline”, Foreign Affairs 97, no. 3, 2018, p. 51.
- 6.
Niblett , “Liberalism in Retreat”, p. 18.
- 7.
This share is Italy 97%, US 81%, UK 70%, Netherlands 70%, France 63%. See Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz, Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order. Munich Security Report 2017, Munich Security Conference (https://www.securityconference.de/en/discussion/munich-security-report/munich-security-report-2017/), p. 9.
- 8.
See Claudia Crawford, Boris Makarenko and Nikolay Petrov (eds.), Populism as a Common Challenge (Moscow: Political Encyclopedia, 2018).
- 9.
See in particular Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Trump, Brexit and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash, Harvard Kennedy School, Faculty Research Working Paper Series, RWP16–026, August 2016.
- 10.
See Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk, “The Signs of Deconsolidation”, Journal of Democracy 28, no. 1, 2017, pp. 5–16.
- 11.
Yascha Mounk and Roberto Foa, “The End of Democratic Century. Autocracy’s Global Ascendance”, Foreign Affairs 95, no. 3, 2018, pp. 29–36.
- 12.
Arch Puddington and Tyler Roylance, Freedom in the World 2017. Populists and Autocrats: The Dual Threat to Global Democracy, Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2017)
- 13.
Constance Duncombe and Tim Dune, “After Liberal World Order”, International Affairs 94, no. 1, 2018, pp. 25–42.
- 14.
Andrei Kortunov, The Inevitable, Weird World, Moscow: Russian International Affairs Council, 20 July 2016 (http://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/neizbezhnost-strannogo-mira/). See also Anne L. Clunan, “Russia and the Liberal World Order”, Ethics and International Affairs 32, no. 1, 2018, pp. 45–59.
- 15.
Joseph S. Nye, “Will the Liberal Order Survive? The History of an Idea”, Foreign Affairs 96, no. 1, 2017, p. 12.
- 16.
“What is post-liberalism? In society, it signals a shift from rampant individualism and top-down, state-enforced egalitarianism to social solidarity and more fraternal, reciprocal relations. And politically, it signals a shift from the minority politics of vested interests and exclusive group identity to a majority politics based on a balance of interests and shared social identity”. “Adrian Pabst, A Post-Liberal World? Constructive Alternatives to Liberal Globalization and the Threat of Neo-Fascism, DOC Research Institute, 10 January 2018 (https://doc-research.org/en/post-liberal-world/). Notice that the post-liberal discourse is sometimes presented as a way to overcome the Islamist ideological and political challenge to immobile Western liberalism. For more discussion, see Shadi Hamid, Post-Liberalism, East and West: Islamism and the Liberal State, Foreign Affairs, 11 April 2018 (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2018-04-11/post-liberalism-east-and-west)
- 17.
The Liberal Manifesto 2017 was adopted by the Congress of the Liberal International on 18–21 May 2017 in Andorra (https://liberal-international.org/who-we-are/our-mission/landmark-documents/political-manifestos/liberal-manifesto-2017/).
- 18.
Andrea Graziosi, Getting to the Roots of the Illiberal Trends, Reset DoC, 24 April 2017 (http://www.resetdoc.org/story/getting-to-the-roots-of-the-illiberal-trends/).
- 19.
Krastev , “Eastern Europe’s Illiberal Revolution”.
- 20.
For a perceptive review, see Vladislav Zubok, “Unsuccess’ of Russian Liberalism: Contemporary Reflections”, in Riccardo Mario Cucciolla (ed.), State and Political Discourse in Russia (Rome: Reset–Dialogue on Civilizations, 2017).
- 21.
For more details see Andrei Melville, “Neo-Conservatism as National Idea for Russia?”, in Riccardo Mario Cucciolla (ed.), State and Political Discourse in Russia (Rome: Reset-Dialogue on Civilizations, 2017).
- 22.
Paradoxically, according to Laruelle, Russian neocons claim that Russia is a European country, defending core Christian values, but at the same time a non-Western country, rejecting Western liberalism. See Marlene Laruelle, “Russia as an Anti-Liberal European Civilization”, in Pal Kolsto and Heige Blakkisrud (eds.), The New Russian Nationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016). However, Vladislav Surkov, former First Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Administration and still an influential politician, would disagree. According to him, Russia should stop fluctuating between the West and the East and quite consciously adopt a “third way”; in other words “ideologies of the third way, third type of civilization, Third World, third Rome”. Vladislav Surkov, Odinochestvo Polukrovki (14+), Russia in Global Affairs, 9 April 2018 (http://www.globalaffairs.ru/global-processes/Odinochestvo-polukrovki-14-19477). These ideas are not yet the mainstream propaganda discourse but they are quite indicative for the dynamic of neoconservative argumentation.
- 23.
All survey data comes from Levada Centre (www.levada.ru).
- 24.
Foa and Mounk, “The Signs of Deconsolidation”.
- 25.
Some peculiar exceptions to this can be found in recent analytical papers and reports by the RIAC—Russian International Affairs Council (http://russiancouncil.ru/en/)—and the CSR -, Center for Strategic Research (http://csr-nw.ru/en/). See, in particular, Andrei Kortunov, Seven Debates over the Fourteen Points, Russian International Affairs Council, 15 January 2018 (http://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/seven-debates-over-the-fourteen-points/).
- 26.
In a particular way this division may reflect some more basic alternatives within the liberal conceptual and political repertoire. Elena Chebankova, for example, distinguishes “monistic radical” and “moderate pluralist” wings within the liberal tradition and Russian liberalism in particular: “Monistic radical liberalism is geared toward a radical reconstruction of the Russian state and society, aiming for the full convergence of Russian and Western political and socio-cultural patterns on the basis of the Western liberal consensus”. Elena Chebankova, “Contemporary Russian Liberalism”, Post-Soviet Affairs 30, no. 5, 2014, p. 344.
- 27.
Geir Flikke, “Canaries in a Coal Mine: The Uphill Struggle of Russia’s Non-System Liberals”, Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 24, no. 3, 2016, pp. 291–325.
- 28.
Timur Kuran, “Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989”, World Politics 44, no. 1, 1991, pp. 7–48.
- 29.
Vladislav Zubok is more than right arguing that “liberalism cannot be revived in Russia without an honest and transparent analysis of what occurred in the 1990s”. Zubok, “Unsuccess’ of Russian Liberalism”. p. 201.
- 30.
Repentance (Pokayaniye) was a 1984 Soviet drama movie directed by Tengiz Abuladze and published in 1986 on the wake of Perestroika. The movie presented an allegorical critique of the Soviet past. Of course, there could be no direct analogies between the two epochs—only the general feeling of remorse.
- 31.
Anatol Liven, Russia’s Limousine Liberals, The National Interest, 10 June 2009 (http://nationalinterest.org/article/russias-limousine-liberals-3140).
- 32.
Snob, Petr Aven vs Anatoliy Chubays: Rodina ili svoboda?, Snob, 14 November 2017 (https://snob.ru/entry/154564).
- 33.
Mounk , for example, also underlines the fact that Western liberals should “reclaim nationalism”. Yascha Mounk, How Liberals Can Reclaim Nationalism, The New York Times, 3 March 2018.
- 34.
Anatoly Chubais, Pereosmyslivaya itogi: kak natsionalizirovat’ rossiyskiy liberalizm, paper presented at the 25th anniversary of the Leontiev Center on 10 September 2016 (http://www.leontief-centre.ru/UserFiles/Files/Progr_10_09_2016.pdf).
- 35.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949).
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Melville, A. (2019). The Illiberal World Order and Russian Liberals. In: Cucciolla, R.M. (eds) Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05784-8_14
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