Published under the title “Dealing with modern illiberal democracies: From vintage electoral autocracy to today’s jumble of populism with nativism” in Arne Muis and Lars van Troost (eds), Will Human Rights Survive Illiberal Democracy? (Amsterdam: Amnesty International Strategic Studies, 2018), pp. 25-30.
“In the beginning was the Word,” proclaims the Gospel of John, and we should probably take that statement more seriously than we often do. Especially when the talk is about nothing less than the future of contemporary liberal democracy. For, if you really agree with me that liberal democratic politics is currently at risk, and must be rescued, we have first to agree on the nature of the threat to our democracies before we are in a position to propose solutions. As is often the case, then, we must begin by revisiting some of the wisdom received at more politically innocent times.
