AUTHORITARIAN LIBERALISM AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT: THE EVOLUTION OF ORDOLIBERAL IDEAS IN THE EUROPEAN INTEGRATION PROCESS

Abstract

The author analyzes the concept of authoritarian liberalism and interprets it as one of the relevant explanatory models of European integration. Authoritarian liberalism is conceptualized as an ideological synthesis of semi-authoritarian forms of government and neoliberal economic goals; the emergence of this concept is associated with periods of economic crises，such as the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s and the Eurozone crisis. Ordoliberalism as a flexible, market-oriented form of authoritarian liberalism means a rational strategy for maintaining and promoting economic neoliberalism, to which the market economy and the technocratic elite are moving to contain crises and conflicts. Authoritarian liberalism is explained as a structure of dominance of market capitalism over representative democracy with a technical role of semi-authoritarianism, which，however，is not repressive or mo- nocentric and is subject to democratic criticism in the issue of regulating European integration.