Liberals' Choice

This project (which is the cumulative result of my DPhil, MPhil and undergraduate theses) offers an original, synthetic theory of the emergence of liberal representative democracy in Europe during the 19th and early 20th century. This period saw the end of absolutist monarchies in all European countries, only for political paths to diverge widely thereafter. Some countries evolved into stable democracies, while others collapsed back into novel forms of authoritarianism – most notably fascism and communism – during the interwar period. I argue that this regime divergence is best understood through the lens of the strategic behaviour of, and the strategic interactions among, the three main party families of this period: liberals, conservatives, and labour parties. Contrary to recent work by Ziblatt (2017), who analyses the strategic choices of conservative parties in isolation, I argue that the key actors determining European regime trajectories were liberals.

Liberal parties chose between two strategic approaches. Where they adopted “elitist liberalism,” conservative parties responded by becoming more reactionary, and labour movements pursued revolutionary strategies. This gave rise to a Radical Disequilibrium, in which all three party families pursued mutually exclusive, anti-democratic projects of regime change. In most cases, this culminated in an authoritarian takeover, led by the likes of Mussolini.

In contrast, where liberal parties pursued “progressive liberalism,” they guided labour movements towards a reformist approach, and left conservative parties with little choice but to moderate. The result was a Moderate Equilibrium, in which all three party families concluded that a democratic system was preferable to the alternatives. Since no significant actors seeking to subvert democracy remained, these democratic regimes proved stable, even during the difficult interwar years.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, contrary to the dominant structural theories of democratisation, it was thus political choices and not economic conditions that determined the success or failure of liberals’ bid to introduce representative government. This theory is tested via a comparative historical analysis of party behaviour across 10 cases, conducted through a mix of within-case process-tracing and cross-case comparisons.

I am currently exploring the theory’s relevance to contemporary developments in European party competition: specifically, the gradual rise of populism and the concomitant risks to the survival of European democracies. It argues that the current trend towards a reimagined form of elitist liberalism – now under the heading of ‘technocracy’ or ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’ – is resulting in renewed radicalisation on both the right and left. Moderate Equilibria are unravelling, and our best hope of restabilising them is to renew the ‘progressive bargain’ (i.e., to revitalise participatory democracy and welfare states) to undermine the appeal of both right- and left-wing populism.