Liberal Democracy

Establishing liberal democracies across the world is beneficial and will decrease human rights violations. I am a proponent of establishing a liberal society prior to democratic institutions. There are two main concepts at the core of liberalism. First, is individual freedom and second is tolerance. Like democracy versus liberalism, these two concepts can go one before the other, or vise versa and the order in which they are established in a country is critical to the longevity of liberalism. Likewise, there are many advantages to the establishment of a truly liberal democracy. Simply having a solid liberal democracy does not automatically lead to a society that respects human rights but the development of such a nation can decrease mass human rights violations and decrease cruelty around the world, especially in the form of warfare.
I argue that tolerance must come before individual freedom. Tolerance is the idea that views and ideals other than ones own must be tolerated and one must tolerate others, unlike themselves, enough not to harm them, take their freedom from them, or threat them unequally to ones self. Tolerance can and will look like many different things and there are a multitude of types of tolerance. Political tolerance can be defined as the opportunity for a wide range of political groups to express their ideas and to participate in the public life. Governmental institutions support much of this type of tolerance; however, cultural tolerance is the portion of tolerance that comes first when attempting to liberalize a country.
Different groups of people must learn to give and take, they must learn to accept others as different and get rid of an all of nothing ideal that supports only their position. Likewise, the institution of tolerance would lead to cooperation and voluntary associations. While tolerance needs to be established prior to other things, once established, social capital and other democratic ideals can be fostered and help produce a strong democratic state.
Second to tolerance is the liberal idea of personal freedom. This is simply explained in the United States as an individual freedom to life, liberty and happiness. For liberalization purposes, this freedom includes, among other things, the freedom of personal property, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and media. Like aspects of tolerance, aspects of freedom can and will be established and enforced using political institutions. This idea is why I argue that tolerance must come before citizens are able to grant freedoms to people different than themselves.
Establishing the core principles of liberalization, tolerance and personal freedom, will help nations control the corruption and prosper as a democratic nation. Teaching tolerance must be done internally and to make it genuine, it must not be forced by other nations. However, the establishment and support of personal freedom is something the West and the United States, specifically, can help with. Creating an environment for freedom to extend equally among citizens will be hard and an outside force that is not biased towards one group to help establish the institutions needed to extend freedom to all.
Establishing a liberal democracy, instead of an institutional democracy or simply voting would decrease human rights violations, especially those committed by governments towards citizens. In his book In Our Own Best Interest, Schulz makes this link between this liberal type of nation and human rights. He explains that beyond “free elections” is a “civil society” where such elections are actually meaningful and where differences are not dismissed but are trumped by recognition of a common humanity. A liberal democracy would ensure that elections are fair and that citizens can oppose the current government. Likewise, peaceful transitions between governments and peaceful relations during election time would likely be established. Government officials would be better held accountable for their actions and the country would be more likely to team up with other democracies which would lead to accountability internationally.
Schulz goes more into depth about what a liberal nation looks like and the importance of tolerance and personal freedom. He explains, “What makes a “free election” meaningful, however, is not just that more than one candidate is permitted to run for office. What matters also is that the opposition be unintimidated and the media unbowed. What matters is that he courts and arbiters be independent; that voluntary associations of all stripes be allowed to flourish. What matter is that minority rights be respected and the mores of civil society be in place.” As stated above, liberal democracy does not guarantee respect of human rights but a liberal democracy, as outlined in this blog, has a relationship with peace and a respect for human rights.

Resource:
Schulz, William F., and Mary Robinson. In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All. Boston, MA, USA: Beacon, 2002. Print.