Crisis of liberalism

Crisis of Liberalism is commonly referred to the inability of a liberal ideology to protect fundamental human rights and provide sustainable economic growth; It is also seen as a decrease in electoral trust to liberal parties and, as a consequence, an increasing influence of radical and far-right parties in the 21st century.

The term itself became prevalent in politics since the early 2000s and was primarily viewed as the pattern consisting of three parts. The first one has political implications and refers to the crisis of the growing gap between classic liberal thought and political practice of traditionally liberal countries (the most common example of which is the “Trumpism”).

The second part is an economic one. It refers to the expanding discrepancy between the massive productive capacity of the global economic system and the limited demand for the commodities produced by this system. One of the indicators of the deepening crisis is the escalating competition among world capitalist elites, overaccumulation and overproduction, as well as unprecedented number of financial crises in the last fifty years.

The third part has global manifestation and it is the crisis of legitimacy and credibility of global hegemony. Berthold Beitz Professor John Gerard Ruggie in the book Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an International Order said that "US wish to transform the multilateral world order into a pan-American model again pursuing its interests through international institutions (e.g. WTO, IMF, and the World Bank)."

Political aspect

In 2001 author Larry Diamond said that different illiberal forces have now been legitimated through the existing democratic institutions claimed to be based on the foundations of the liberalism. According to Freedom House, 2016 has already experienced the success of the Brexit campaign, the phenomenon of Donald Trump, and a new Philippine president who openly supports extrajudicial killings. According to Freedom House, a decade-long support for radical ideas in Western polyarchies caused a steady diminution in global freedom.

In the digital age of democracy, liberal openness falls into insecurity state due to irresponsible use of ICT. In one way, innovations are able to lead to democracy, that will result in public control; on the contrary, they may lead to authoritarian manipulation of information in different areas of social life.

Untruthful reporting, hacking the private data of politicians and parties - these methods are gaining popularity, especially from the perspective of 2017 parliamentary elections in France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands as well as an important presidential campaign in France.

Shattered liberalism in the West reflected in attitudes of different political groups in other regions. This has already happened in some of the regions in Eastern and Central Europe. In the circumstances of fear and insecurity societies seek answers in the comfort zone of traditional identities and fundamentalism.

Economic impact

In the modern era, a liberal economy is stemming from the sudden deregulation of the financial sectors and the decisions to not maintain treasury banking practices. Such processes led to the emergence of major issues regarding economic inequality, and financial instability.

David A. Westbrook in his article for Cultural Anthropology claimed that it also means that the social trust and social cohesion are eroding. If trust is too low in a society, people lose confidence in their institutions, state, and government as the legal systems that guarantee the rights. This symptom of political ailment brings the more unstable, heavy-handed, and turbulent situations.

The financial globalization is seen as a major factor that contributes to the flowing crisis. Its key elements are:

●    The tremendous increase of the financial assets of individuals and large corporations across the globe. It is an outcome of the enlargement of financial instruments supported by securitization and derivatives;

●    The real and financial economy performing with the savage formation of fictitious financial statuses helping capitalists to gain significant amounts of revenue without investment into society's goals;

●    The main growth in the profit rates of financial sectors, and mostly the ability to grant bonus payments to the financial traders for the ability to increase capitalist rent.

Since most of the countries undertook financial liberalization, there has been a marked increase in the frequency of crises. From 1945 to 1971 the world has experienced a number of serious crises; to be precise, thirty-eight financial crises. The frequency has greatly increased since 1973. The world experienced 139 financial crises between 1973 and 1997, this number is 3.5 times greater than the number of crises that occurred in the post-WWII period.

Consequences

Europe

Nowadays Europe faces the growing strength of the right-wing parties which represent themselves with a discourse composed of civilizational and economic protectionism. One of the key factors for these movements and parties is migration from outside and within the EU. There have been several anti-immigration policies in EU countries. For the sake of preservation of Christian identity, some member states (such as Hungary, Austria and Poland) peremptorily rejected the allocation of refugees from Syria.

The growth of the nationalist right in the EU was accelerated by the global crisis that began in 2007-2008. According to the Glyn Morgan, Associate Professor of Political Science in University of California in Denmark, Belgium and Finland, they are either part of the governing coalition or support without being directly part of the government. In the Liberalism, nationalism, and post-Brexit Europe essay he says that in many other EU countries, right-wing parties have emerged stronger from recent elections. Most of the today’s right parties do not question parliamentary pluralism. "However, those nationalist-wing forces that govern alone – like Hungarian “Fidesz” or Polish “Prawo i Sprawiedliwość” – have affected the separation of powers and have tried to take tighter control of the mass media and judiciary."

Noteworthy are also the cases of the Slovak “Sloboda a Solidarita”, Czech “Občanská demokratická strana”, UKIP, “Alternative für Deutschland”, and “Lega Nord” that are compatible with strong anxiety against migrants as well as national-conservative ideas. At the same time, faragism raises its head. Faragist political parties in EU have increased their anti-EU rhetoric and hope to take their countries away through the same exit door as Britain.

In 2016 German professor Dr. Thomas Greven in his comparative research for Friedrich Ebert Stiftung claimed that the French political movement “Front National” which is now established as France’s third-strongest political party had an extremist, anti-Semitic message for decades. Austria’s “Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs” is also a remarkable example for institutionalizing populists’ extremism: the FPÖ’s candidate, Norbert Hofer, gained a plurality of the vote (35.3%) in the first round of presidential elections in 2016.

Notes

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