Liberalism, Civic Reformism and Democracy Essay - 2784 Words

Liberalism, Civic Reformism and Democracy This paper argues that liberalism provides democracy with the experience of civic reformism. Without it, democracy loses any tie-argumentative or practical-to a coherent design of public policy endeavoring to provide the resources for the realization of democratic citizenship. The case for liberalism rests on an argumentative reconstruction of the function it performs before the rise of a world economic order and, more specifically, in the creation of the welfare state after the Second World War. Accordingly, liberalism defines a reformist political program: it is an emancipatory political project by virtue of its struggle for an egalitarian and universalist extension of citizenship rights. This†¦show more content†¦For its later history, liberalism owes as much to its antecedents (situated at the rise of parliamentary assemblies and of the rule of law in the Middle Ages), as to its linkages with the republican tradition of communal self-government (from the seventeenth cent ury onwards), and with the socialist tradition in support for an egalitarian model of society (as from the eighteenth century). Indeed, it is this double tie what determines that the political history of liberalism belongs to the history of modern democracy: a representative democracy but, thereby, pluralist. The tie also explains that the economic history of liberalism cannot be separated from the birth of the welfare state. In both respects liberalism defines a reformist political program: it is an emancipatory political project by virtue of its struggle for an egalitarian and universalist extension of citizenship rights. This is but a formulation of the modern idea of citizenship, conceived of as a universalizable contract of rights. At the same time, liberalism embraces a socio-economic emancipatory project that endeavors to provide the conditions, within the institutional frame of modern societies, for the accomplishment of citizenship rights. Let us comment on this double characterization. Liberal Citizenship: A Universalizable Contract of Rights Firstly, if citizenship denotes the membership statute of individuals and social groups belonging to a political community (namely, aShow MoreRelatedOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagesnation-states insisted on their power to register, count, deport, and monitor the peoples within their borders. Revolutionary France is an early and iconic example of this paradoxical shift. Its constitution of 1791 guaranteed the â€Å"natural and civic right† of freedom â€Å"to move about, remain and depart.† At the same time, it is credited with the â€Å"invention of the passport,† inasmuch as this new passport was a standardized identity document issued by a central government and required of all people