Defending democracy: the problem of populism, the people and elites

Daryl Glaser

Chapter 10 in The Substance in Liberal Democracy, 2026, pp 177-196 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Procedural liberal democracy is a rule-governed system, but one that anticipates, even welcomes, political conflict. It is meant simultaneously to facilitate and regulate conflict. But what when conflict escapes its rule-governed bounds? What, in other words, when participants do not play by the rules – not merely on this or that issue, but in the sense of threatening to impose an illiberal or authoritarian regime in liberal democracy's stead? The matter is complicated when the threat emanates from ‘the people’ as opposed to manageable fringe figures. Liberalism has a natural (and not ridiculous) fear of the people, and a certain tendency to rely on liberal elites to keep the people in check. It looks to elites as guardians of liberal substance, whether the substance consists in negative rights, directive positive rights or rationality. In a liberal democracy judges and technocrats thus routinely manage political conflict alongside the elected. But when the threat of a wild demos extends beyond a certain point, some liberals demand repression of threatening forces, or what has been termed ‘militant democracy’. This chapter warns liberal democrats against any too-ready recourse in repression, lest they undermine the ideologically open proceduralism they supposedly support. Militant democracy threatens to become, in effect, a variant of the substantivism they fight. It moreover seeks safety in the very elite vanguardism that elicited populist opposition in the first place. Liberal democrats are better off trying to address popular grievances politically, the more so since some may turn out to be well-founded. Recourse in political war should be rare.

Keywords: Populism and democracy; Elitism and democracy; Liberalism; Elitism and populism; Threats to democracy; Militant democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035333011
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