Cohen-Almagor - Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance: Essays in Honor and Memory of Yitzhak Rabin

Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Preliminaries

Democracy in its modern, liberal formation is a young phenomenon. It was crystallized only after the Second World War. The idea that governments would be elected through popular vote alarmed and frightened the nineteenth-century decision makers. Now we are so accustomed to the idea of democracy that we tend to forget how young and fragile it is.

One of the problems of any political system is that the principles that underlie and characterize it might also, through their application, endanger it and bring about its destruction. Democracy, in its liberal form, is no exception. Moreover, because democracy is a relatively young phenomenon, it lacks experience in dealing with pitfalls involved in the working of the system. This is what I call the catch of democracy.

Some explanation is required to clarify the meaning of the catch of democracy. Any political systemtheocratic, liberal, Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, etc.is based on a given set of principles. The working of these principles is designed to promote values that those systems hold dear. However, these same principles might endanger the very foundations of the political systems. The case is clear when authoritarian systems are pondered. People want to free themselves and break the coercive bonds. But the same risk is also involved in the working of liberal-democratic principles.

Like every young phenomenon, democracy needs to develop gradually, with great caution and care. Since democracies lack experience, they are uncertain with regard to the appropriate means to be utilized in order to fight down explicit antidemocratic and illiberal practices. Quite surprisingly, literature about how democracies should cope with violence and political extremism is scarce. Abundant literature exists about the pros of democracy, the value of liberty, the virtue of tolerance. Much less in comparison is devoted to the intricate issue of the appropriate boundaries of liberty and tolerance.

Indeed, it seems that liberals are not too happy to talk about the limits of democracy. They feel much more comfortable speaking about the principles that underlie democracy and devote much less detailed discussion to the exceptions to the rules. Generally speaking, liberals (many of whom are consequentialists) prefer to speak of the general rulesliberty, tolerance (Alf Ross, Alexander Meiklejohn, Franklin Haiman, Frederick Schauer, Lee Bollinger), rights (Hugo Black, Aryeh Neier), equality (Ronald Dworkin), truth (John Stuart Mill), and justice (John Rawls). They all wish to promote liberty and tolerance; to urge governments not to apply partisan considerations that affirm principally their own interests and conceptions; to seek ways to accommodate different conceptions of the good; and to reach compromises by which the system will respect variety and pluralism and at the same time continue to uphold the rationale of democracy, which may be summarized by a twofold dictum: do not harm others; promote respect for others.

This volume is dedicated to the question of boundaries: how should democracies cope with antidemocratic forces that pose a challenge to the system? How should we respond to threats that undermine democracy and at the same time retain our values and maintain our commitment to democracy and to its underlying values? This is a compelling task, because it is saturated with fears as to how we can find appropriate answers to political extremists and violent movements that do not see themselves under any obligation to uphold the democratic principles and values: Should we adopt violent principles to fight down terrorism and violence? Could we adopt such means and still be considered democratic? How could we be certain that democratic means will be sufficient to subdue violent movements whose motto and guiding principle is to break all rules of the game? How are we to prevent the slippery slope syndrome, that is, make sure that the antidemocratic means we employ in our struggle against antidemocratic forces will not be utilized in other spheres of life that are democratic in nature?