Talk:Liberal democracy

Credibility of V-Dem Varieties of Democracies
Why is this organization cited as an authority? V-Dem hides their sources, but it looks like its ratings are made by liberal democrats from US academia (which is 90% Democrat)? Shouldn't a cited source be credible or at least have its survey results be based on unbiased participants? Their allegation of the "autocratization" of the US ...see referenced https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/FH_FIW_Report_2018_Final.pdf. ... is based solely on the current democratically elected president executing the office of president according to the US Constitution and held to those standards by congress and the courts. Is V-Dem a sufficiently reliable source to be the only reference for assertion that the USA is somehow less of a constitutional democracy now than it was 4 years ago? — Preceding unsigned comment added by N0w8st8s (talk • contribs) 07:27, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Definition of liberal democracy does not include
Liberal democracy does not include the concept known as "separation of powers" which is peculiar to the US type systems. For example, the UK has legislative supremacy which is not a variety of the concept called separation of powers and the UK is definitely a liberal democracy. Calif.DonTracy (talk) 23:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Secular state
Aren't the states with liberal democracy secular states? DarkLink (talk) 22:21, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit: I'm asking because if the states with liberal democracy are secular states, it should be mentioned in the article. DarkLink (talk) 20:55, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You can be a secular state and still not liberal democracy example historically and somehow now are like Turkey or Tunisia. Or China and Russia which are secular and defiantly not liberal democracies Nlivataye (talk) 12:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Populism section lacks neutrality
This section maintains a strong opposition to populism by labeling it a threat to liberal democracy without an adequate explanation for why this is. The examples of populism cited are exclusively right wing without any left wing balance.

for example:

"Populism is a form of majoritarianism, threatening some of the core principles of liberal democracy such as the rights of the individual. Examples of these can vary from Freedom of movement via control on Immigration, or perhaps opposition to Liberal Social Values such as gay marriage"

It's unclear from this how a control on Immigration constitutes a threat to the "rights of the individual," every country has some level of control on immigration, at what point does immigration practices become contrary to natural rights? or is every country populist and anti-individual rights? Similarly, opposition to gay marriage was overwhelmingly the position on both sides of the political divide only 20 years ago. At what point does a political position become solidified as a "liberal social value" and thus opposition is populist and antithetical to liberal democracy? Was everyone populist and antithetical to liberal democracy as recently as the 1990s? Is everyone currently a populist and antithetical to liberal democracy for opposing a majority view held in the future?

"A key weakness of liberal democracies highlighted in 'How Democracies Die',[99] is the conundrum that suppressing populist movements or parties can be seen to be illiberal. The nature of Populism is to appeal to the people against the 'elites' in an 'us against them' type mentality. As a result, Populist movements often appeal to the Working Class and Middle Classes as these are the demographics who form most of the population and are in a position to 'punch up' in society against the 'elite'."

This needs to be elaborated on because it's unclear why opposition to "elites" is bad for liberal democracy? the "conundrum" that suppressing populist movements is illiberal is unclear, it seems entirely illiberal to suppress a political movement and no explanation is provided as to why this would ever be considered necessary to protect liberalism.

"Examples of populist movements can include the Brexit Campaign, 2016.[103] The role of the 'elite' in this circumstance was played by the EU and 'London centric Liberals',[104] while the Brexit campaign appealed to Working class industries, such as fighting, agriculture and industrial, who were worse off due to EU Membership."

It is unclear from this why those who are disproportionately harmed by an existing policy represent a threat to liberal democracy when their grievance manifests politically. Is not the protection of the less fortunate and the individual from oppression a core virtue of liberal democracy?

This section just needs to be balanced and fleshed out. It appears to be written from a very left wing position and portrays populism as any opposition to left wing politics, thus opposition to left wing politics is equated with illiberalism. This is in direct contradiction with the importance of compromise and balancing of opinions that characterizes liberal democracy. It's possible this was unintential and simply the result of being incomplete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pattylabonion (talk • contribs) 11:20, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

A combination of "liberal" and "democracy"
I was strucked by the fact that this article seems to ignore that Liberalism and Representative democracy have their own articles. We don't need to repeat what these words mean. We should rather explain what their combination adds, including what differentiates liberal democracy from e.g. social democracy and other forms of democracy. LucSaffre (talk) 07:17, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

covert activities & citizen oversight
There is some natural strain between secrecy needed for security (and misused to protect the corrupt) and transparency needed for true democracy. I'd like to see some discussion of how citizens in democracies are supposed to maintain appropriate oversight of covert decisions and actions by a 'democratic' government for which the citizens are responsible. How is oversight delegated (e.g. congressional intelligence committees, the press, etc.) (Currently there are 2 brief references to freedom of the press, but nothing about things like 'FOIA' laws or laws to retain archives.) These seem more than just implementation details and are fundamental to whether 'democracy' is even really possible. DKEdwards (talk) 23:32, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Meaning of civil society and it types
Civil Society is the combination of institution or organization established by individual or group of person to protect and promote the interest of general masses or people who are poor and cannot defend them self. They are also refers to as Non governmental Organization(NGO)

Types of Civil Society

- Community based organization

- Private voluntary Organization (PVO)

-Civil club

- Professional group institution

- Charities society of human development

- Co operatives

- Human right group

- Pre democracy group

- Student Union group

- Business Association

- Gender Based Group

- Labour Union

- Academic institution

- Religious group

Faruqolaitan123 (talk) 06:47, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under a representative democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified (such as in the United States)[1] or uncodified (such as in the United Kingdom), to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. After a period of expansion in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy became a prevalent political system in the world.[2] 103.127.179.34 (talk) 17:18, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Potentially plagiarized opening article
The opening paragraph of the article matches an article by the European Center for Populism Studies word for word. It does not cite the article - much less put it in quotation marks. Maybe the article copied it from Wikipedia, although Wikipedia was not cited. AFrickingNerd (talk) 21:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Is Indonesia a liberal democracy?
Indonesia is mentioned in the lead section as an example of a liberal democracy. However, according to the definition of a liberal democracy in this very article, Indonesia is far from being one. Specifically, it does not by any means respect "the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties" which this article correctly states a liberal democracy, by definition, must do.

Indonesian law is heavily influenced by Sharia law, a phenomenon that has only become worse recently. For example, last December Indonesia's parliament passed a law criminalizing private, consensual sex outside marriage, punishable by a jail term. Gay people are regularly being persecuted by authorities, and when caught, they are being punished by brutal flogging for nothing more than being gay. Is that Wikipedia's definition of a country that respects the "equal protection of human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties" as described in the lead? That's absurd.

Given Indonesia's abysmal record of abusing human and minority rights, and the huge, ever-increasing influence of Sharia law over state law and the penal code, I find it absurd that the country can even be referred to as a "democracy" anymore. But describing it as a liberal democracy is an utter joke, according to every possible definition of that term, including the one given in this article.

I therefore removed Indonesia from the examples of liberal democracies given in the lead. Unfortunately, I was reverted with a somewhat arrogant edit summary "Best read up on the topic before random edit". I would like to know what you think. Can a country that is dominated by Sharia law and constantly abuses human rights, women's rights, gay rights and more, in the most brutal, inhumane ways, be described as a "liberal democracy"? Guycn2 (talk) 20:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Not the greatest Western democracy in the world but ranks close to the United States overall.
 * freedom
 * matrix
 * index
 * Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 01:33, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Liberal democracies require effective rule of law, but the form that a society's laws take are up to them - this isn't an article on "Western democracies" ... whatever laws a country institutes, if instituted via parliament, adhere to this underlying principle. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:53, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There is a debate but things are what they are... Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 22:44, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize "Western democracy" was being used as an alt name here - seems off. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We actually use the term " Western-style democracies" in articles as seen at Representative democracy ot Ivan Ilyin or Critical race theory Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 04:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We actually use the term " Western-style democracies" in articles as seen at Representative democracy ot Ivan Ilyin or Critical race theory Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 04:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Reduce alternative names
Currently in the first sentence introduction there are alternative names bolded: I propose 1) unbolding these alternative names since they are not lemmas 2) moving them out of first sentence since substantive is rarely used and western is not a synonym considering there are non-western liberal democracies. HudecEmil (talk) 14:03, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * substantive democracy
 * western democracy


 * Oppose removal of western ..... The problem is that the term "western democracy /Western-style democracies" is linked to here all over (i.e Representative democracy ot Ivan Ilyin or Critical race theory ) and is what you would need to search for if your looking at publications before the 2000s  .  Is there a bit of a debate that it is still a good synonym   ...yes    ...but still used all over    Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 14:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * As a note both terms are existing redirects that lead to this page. CMD (talk) 16:51, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support Ok HudecEmil this could be good. The thing is as aforementioned by others: it would link a lot of work like a domino.IHaveBecauseOfLocks (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * But I see you are doing a lot of work on the democracy-themed articles lately, so well maybe you could handle that.. IHaveBecauseOfLocks (talk) 17:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Not like I agree with all that rewriting, but if you feel such need and zeal, then I certainly would prefer you do this than some unspecified changes... IHaveBecauseOfLocks (talk) 17:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose as phrased, but suggestion has merit. These are both re-directs and ought to be bolded and included early (although perhaps not the first sentence). Perhaps you may want to propose how you revise to focus on the difference in conceptualizations? JArthur1984 (talk) 17:43, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Updated proposal: Rename Western democracy to Western-style democracy. Change order, first liberal, then western-style then substantive, due to amount of publication on each. HudecEmil (talk) 18:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)