Authoritarian liberalism in contemporary Europe: methodological approaches and conceptual models

Abstract

The author conducts a comparative analysis of authoritarian liberalism's concepts in contemporary political theory. The article deals with the main directions of interpretation of authoritarian liberalism in the framework of methodological approaches and conceptual models of neoliberalism, ordoliberalism, John Rawls' theory of political liberalism, Jan-Werner Mueller's "restrained democracy", Jurgen Habermas' "legitimation crisis", Colin Crouch's "post-democracy", Michael Wilkinson's "de-democratization", Crawford Macpherson's "participatory democracy", Wolfgang Streeck's "democratic capitalism crisis", Giandomenico Majone's "crypto-federalism". The basic analytical concept is the idea of auhoritarian economic liberalism, first proposed by H. Heller and K. Polanyi. For the purpose of methodological reflection, an analytical review of methods and concepts based on modern political and constitutional theory and used in the study of the institutional specifics of authoritarian liberalism has been carried out. Authoritarian liberalism is conceptualized as the neoliberal ideology and practice of de-democratization and restriction of democracy, which results in regionalization of protest against the supranational regime of liberal democracy and political integration in Europe. If authoritarian liberalism focuses on economic liberalism, then authoritarian ways of implementing policies are subject to the interests of private property: authoritarianism strengthens economic liberalism, which, in turn, reinforces the EU's "authoritarian transformation". In the context of the Euro-crisis, authoritarian liberalism restricts traditional forms of representative democracy, political struggle, and the legitimation of power, contributing to the reanimation of ethnic nationalism. In contemporary Europe, right-wing euroskeptics are gaining popularity. The authoritarian-liberal restriction of social democracy can lead not only to the strengthening of capitalism, but also to the revival of the reactionary forms of "new nationalism" and authoritarian illiberalism. The EU is developing today in the "neo-colonial paradigm" in accordance with the relations between the core and the periphery between creditor countries and debtor countries. Transnational solidarity suppressed by authoritarian liberalism can become a democratically legitimate tool for resolving a fundamental conflict between market capitalism and representative democracy