Što drži na okupu liberalnu demokraciju?
WHAT KEEPS LIBERAL DEMOCRACY TOGETHER?

Summary/Abstract: A few years after the collapse of communist regimes, it is evident that the confidence about the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy was premature. This waking up to the reality is not only the consequence of the hardships in the transformation of post-communist societies, but of the intellectual scepticism regarding the normative potential of liberal democracy in the developed western societies. The problem might in most general terms be formulated as the incapacity of liberal democracy to generate and reproduce the normative requirements for its own survival. The author thinks that the solution to this paradox can nevertheless be found within the institutional framework of liberal democracy: if the traditional moral concepts on which liberal democracy was founded in the past are worn out indeed, and no civil-religious substitute for that tradition has emerged as yet, then its only possibility is to create its own, modern or post-modern, morality by means of the public discourse mechanism and the political participation of citizens. The normative dimension of liberalism must not be reduced to the theory of private ownership, market and competition, but be envisaged as a constitutional theory of human rights and restricted government and the egalitarian distribution of goods and opportunities.

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