Democracies need laws and civil society as well as free elections
By Lord Dahrendorf
There can be no liberal order without political democracy, but today we are frequently reminded that political democracy alone does not guarantee a liberal order.
Free and fair elections may lead to the ascendancy of a president of Iran who wants to “wipe Israel off the map of the Middle East”. Or to a president of Venezuela whose intolerance of the business class causes jubilation in the streets, but emigration by those whose initiative is crucial for the welfare of the people. Less damaging, yet problematic, is the election – as in Poland – of a minority government that pursues its members’ personal interests and breaks promises of co-operation made before the polls.
In other words, elections are not enough if one wants to bring democracy to the world. Elections can lead to illiberal democracies and worse. They must be embedded in a much more complex institutional framework, which I would describe as the liberal order.
The first feature of the liberal order is that democracies must not tolerate those who set out to destroy democracy. Some countries, such as Germany, have laws that make it possible to ban political parties whose programmes are recognisably anti-democratic. In the past, the law has been used to curb parties of both the extreme Left and Right. This has contributed to preventing any sign of a possible return to the totalitarian ways of the 20th century.
However, it is not always evident when people and parties stand for election what they are going to do if they win. This is where rules that impose term limits on officeholders have their place. Many constitutions contain such a rule, and even President Vladimir Putin of Russia has stated that he will abide by his.
It cannot be said too often that democracy and the rule of law are not the same thing. There are lawless democracies and undemocratic “states of law”. The constitution of liberty requires both, and the rule of law is the more difficult of the two to establish and maintain, for it requires not just a constitution but, almost more importantly, an independent judiciary that is sensitive to violations of constitutional and other legitimate rules. Even then, we know form history that it takes but one “enabling law” to unhinge the rule of law and replace it with an ideological tyranny, as happened when Hitler came to power in Germany.
This is where the third element of a liberal order comes into play: civil society. A plurality of civic associations and activities - regulated but not controlled by the state, and free to express it views and even to demonstrate its (diverse) sentiments publicly – is the most powerful pillar of a liberal order. A vibrant civil society will mobilise when the rule of law is violated, and it can also check the illiberal inclinations of democratic majorities.
This article first appeared in The Scotsman newspaper on 18th November 2005. Reproduced with the kind permission of Lord Dahrendorf.