The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy

Abstract

Liberal democracy is liberalized democracy: that is, democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism. The paper outlines the constitutive features of liberalism and shows how they determined the form and content of democracy and gave rise to liberal democracy as we know it today. It then goes on to argue that liberal democracy is specific to a particular cultural context and cannot claim universal validity. This, however, does not lead to cultural relativism as it is possible to formulate universal principles that every good government should respect. The paper offers one way of reconciling universalism and cultural diversity.

Culling the Masses: A Rejoinder

“…Liberalism has taken various guises in the Americas, but there has been enough of a common ideological kernel that it makes sense to speak of it as a doctrine with hemispheric reach. Commentators have assumed that the USA was the hemispheric and even global example of liberalism expressed as a democracy, although Canada is also invoked as an exemplar (Parekh 1992). Liberalism was very influential among Latin American elites and shaped national modernists' aspirations even when liberal institutions may not have been as robust in Latin America as in the USA.…”

Autonomy and interdependence: quandaries in research ethics

“…Though criticisms emerge from different starting points, critics share the common resentment of the association of autonomy with a particular brand of individualism often associated with the liberal paradigm. As observed by Bhikhu Parekh (1992), liberalism traditionally defines the individual in "minimalist" terms. "It abstracts the person from all his or her 'contingent' and 'external' relations with other people and nature, and defines the person as an essentially self-contained and solitary being encapsulated in and unambiguously marked off from, the 'outside' world by his or her body" [41].…”

Political Exclusion and the Lack of Democratisation: Cross-National Evaluation of Nepali Institutions using a Majoritarian–Consensus Framework

“…Inclusion of various groups, especially in the decisionmaking process, is important because non-members, in some specific issues, may not be able to represent interests and perspectives of groups whose values, experience and lifestyles are different. To arrive at decisions that are fair and just, all perspectives should be deliberated and weighed (Kymlicka, 1995;Mahajan, 1998;Parekh, 1994;Young, 1990). When someone is deprived of an equal voice, the chances are quite high that his or her 'interests will not be given the same attention as the interests of those who do have a voice' (Dahl, 1989: 76).…”