European Liberalism Research Articles

Frank Weston of Zanzibar

On 2 November 1924, Bishop Frank Weston died at Hegongo, in what is now Tanzania. He was a significant theologian and controversialist, defending an Anglicanism rooted in Chalcedonian theology and episcopal ecclesiology. He rejected modernist theology not least because it implied that African Christians had to adopt European liberalism to understand the gospel. He lambasted German and British colonial administrations as disingenuous and inhumane. His commitment to orthodox theology, social justice, and rejection of claims for European superiority, remain relevant in a world still marred by injustice and neocolonial matrices which would seek to diminish the people of Africa.

Captured by Elites: The Portuguese Media System in Liberalism (1820–1926)

This article argues that the concept of ‘captured media’ is invaluable to a deeper understanding of the roles performed by media systems throughout European liberalism and early democratization of nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This case-study explores the structures of the media system during Portuguese Liberalism (1820–1926) in the scope of the Portuguese empire. The concept of the ‘Imperial Public Sphere’ is applied to show how imperial and colonial elites captured the media system to exercise and spread its political and ideological power. As a methodological approach to analyze the roles performed by press, the case-study relies on the model developed by Hallin and Mancini (2004), which is applied to three empirical cases. The use of the concept ‘captured media’ in the field of media history is a contribution to understanding the political roots of the press during colonialism and its legacy to contemporary media systems in Lusophone countries.

Exploring Improvement Possibility of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education Inspired by European Liberal Arts and Science Model

Exploring Improvement Possibility of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education Inspired by European Liberal Arts and Science Model

Exploring Improvement Possibility of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education Inspired by European Liberal Arts and Science Model

In order to improve liberal arts education in Korean universities, it is necessary to analyze the characteristics of European Liberal Arts & Science [LAS] programs. This is because LAS in Europe reflects the orientation of modern liberal arts education such as universal, academic, and contemporary property, and can supplement the limitations of the Korean liberal arts curriculum, which is heavily influenced by sub-disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of the European University College [UC]s’ Liberal Arts & Science model for undergraduate liberal arts education in Korean universities. To this end, text data of three European UCs and Amsterdam UC [AUC] were collected, preprocessed, and then analyzed using techniques such as frequency analysis, topic modeling, and a semantic network. By comparing the results of the frequency analysis, 14 common keywords were extracted and classified into universal (<i>social, human, public, development</i>), academic (<i>research, science, knowledge, skills, analysis</i>), and contemporary (<i>international, global, contemporary, data, economic</i>) orientation. In the structure of the semantic network, some keywords were assigned in several topics. As a result of analyzing 5 keywords of 8 topics in the course titled Data of AUC LAS, 18 of 226 courses included an Introduction. 11 of them are introductory courses of convergence and 7 are theme-oriented courses, which is different from the cases in Korea, which are mostly focused on introductory courses in sub-disciplines. Based on the analysis of texts of AUC LAS, this paper proposes three things: the introduction of a coordinator system and convergence courses, the strengthening of the role of advisors, and the development of teaching-learning methods. The results of these discussions based on text data analysis can be used to improve the standards of liberal arts education in Korea or to reorganize liberal arts education at each university. They can also be used as a reference when developing and managing educational programs such as in institutions dedicated to liberal arts education, university colleges, and departments for self-designing curriculum at Korean universities.

Lembede's Afrika for the Afrikans and the Azanian Tradition Today: A Comparative Analysis of Two Forms of Afrikan Nationalism in “South Africa”

The role of the missionaries in the conquest of Afrika has led to the emergence of “Afrikan liberalism” and its idea of Afrika. Christianity and European miseducation as instruments of epistemicide created a group of “new Afrikans” who, as the leading ideologues of the conquered Afrikans, were infected with European liberalism and humanism. The latter are the conditions necessary for the propagation of an inclusive Afrikan nationalism which seeks to integrate non-Afrikans, such as Europeans and Asians, into Afrika. Anton Lembede, who was a member of the new Afrikans, propagated the political philosophy of Afrikanism, which was premised on an exclusive idea of Afrika for the Afrikans. Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko, through A. P. Mda's idea of “broad nationalism”, pursued an inclusive idea of Afrika. This article seeks to foreground Lembede's exclusive idea of Afrika in contrast to the Azanian tradition's non-racial and inclusive idea of Afrika, as encapsulated in Sobukwe's metaphor of the Afrikan tree and Biko's metaphor of the Afrikan table. This article engages in a brief comparative analysis of two forms of Afrikan nationalism in South Africa to underscore the two ideas of Afrika.

Liberale Theologie heute – Liberal Theology Today. Edited by Jörg Lauster, Ulrich Schmiedel, and Peter Schüz.

Liberalism has so many forms and appears in various manifestations in different disciplines and areas of life: economics, ethics, philosophy, politics, religion, theology. Beyond that, its forms are shaped geographically too. Neo-liberal economics might play out relatively uniformly in terms of global capitalism, but religious and theological liberalism can be very different in the USA when compared with Europe. And then European liberalism is not a single thing. To talk of ‘liberalism’ at all, even in theology, as if it were possible to capture it in any sense as a narrowly definable, identifiable phenomenon, may be doomed to failure. This collection of essays, which began life in a conference in Munich in 2018, finds 31 writers (24 men, 7 women; 22 writing in German, 9 in English) reflecting from different perspectives on liberal theology’s past, present, and future. After a short scene-setting editorial from Jörg Lauster, the book is divided into four unequal parts. The first offers six international perspectives (five of the essays in English). Gary Dorrien fuses the work he has done on both liberal and liberationist theology, with Hegel as a constant conversation partner, to provide a bracing beginning. It is sobering to be reminded by a well-known academic that he ‘came through the door of social activism’ and ‘was a solidarity organiser’ long before he became a cleric and an academic (p. 20). Scandinavia (meriting two essays), the Netherlands, and England are European case studies. Mark Chapman’s chapter on the English scene could perhaps have made a slight nod towards forms of liberalism other than Anglican. Further afield, Sung Kim poses the question whether liberal Christian theology can be found at all in Asia, though sketches ways in which it might yet be fruitful.

«BETWEEN HISTORY AND POLITICS»: LIVING AND INTELLECTUAL SPACES OF THE UKRAINIAN EMIGRÉ HISTORIAN IVAN LYSIAK-RUDNYTSKYI (1919–1984)

The article informs that Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytskyi was born in the family of famous Ukrainian public and political figures Pavlo Lysiak and Milena Rudnytska. His childhood and youth were spent in Lviv, where he graduated from gymnasium and studied at the university. The outlook of the future historian and teacher was formed under the influence of the traditions of Western European liberalism. It is emphasised that I. Lysiak-Rudnytskiy always took part in public life. He collaborated with the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences and Arts in the USA and was an active member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Canada. He also showed himself as a talented journalist. Throughout his life, he contributed to Ukrainian emigration periodical publications, in particular, the newspaper «Ukrainska Pravda» and the magazine «Zustrichi, he was also an employee of «Suchasnosti». Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytskiy is the author of about 200 scientific works on the new and modern history of Ukraine, the formation of the modern Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian political thought of the 19th and 20th centuries. The article analyzes such of his works as «Intellectual beginnings of new Ukraine» (1958), «The Fourth Universal and its ideological predecessors» (1968, 1977), «Notes on the problem of “historical” and “non-historical” nations» (1981), «The political opinion of Ukrainian sub-Soviet dissidents» (1981) and others. It was found that the historian expressed original opinions about the ancient and new history of Ukraine and put forward an original analytical scheme for Ukrainian nation-building. He substantiated the thesis about the «breaks», «dying and reviving» of the Ukrainian nation. At the same time, the researcher proposed to distinguish between the concept of the people as an ethnic unit and the nation as a political entity. The people are the basis for the formation of the nation. The scientist understood the content and essence of Ukrainian history as the interaction of the people and the nation. National revival of the 19th century. the scientist considered it as the beginning of the final, modern phase of the formation of the Ukrainian nation, after the princely and Cossack ones. It is noted that in his works, the professor demonstrated exceptional erudition in various humanitarian fields and examined the problems of the Ukrainian people’s past against the backdrop of world history, taking into account the methodological arsenal of Western historical science, which he masterfully possessed. It is stated that the philosophical depth and relevance of the topics, which balance «between history and politics», have assigned an important role to the works of I. Lysiak-Rudnytsky in historical science. Keywords Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky, historian-emigrant, publicist, educator.

Bernard Bailyn's Barbarous Modernity

Bernard Bailyn's Barbarous Modernity

Security, history and the boundaries of European identity after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a rupture point in European politics of a kind not seen since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The effects on the human, military, energy and environmental security of Central and Eastern Europe have been dramatic, but ideational factors are proving to be as significant as material ones. Conflicting understandings of shared history are shaping the course of the war in Ukraine and its effects on the rest of Europe, underscoring the status of Russia as the other against which European societies construct their identity. As a result, in the rest of Europe as well as in Ukraine itself, Ukrainian identity is now increasingly seen as European, and European identity is understood to include Ukraine. At the same time, a collective focus on this reshaping of identity is muting some of the most urgent questions about the limits of European liberalism and democracy.

POLITICS OF INDIGENISM IN MODERN LATIN AMERICA

The article deals with the politics of indigenism in modern Latin America. Based on the socio-constructivist approach, the changes that took place during the XX-XXI centuries in the public policy of a number of countries in the region in relation to the indigenous population are analyzed, the positions of intellectuals and elites in the formation of the agenda and various options for the policy of indigenism in the context of the colonial European heritage and political events of the XX century are evaluated. Indigenism in this work is considered as a specific public policy towards the indigenous population and a strategy of nation-building in Latin American countries. Special attention is paid to the countries in which a significant part of the population is made up of Indians - Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. These countries have been united by a common history for centuries: the pre-Hispanic civilizations of America - the Maya, Aztecs, Incas, who inhabited their territories, were distinguished by a high level of development of science and culture. However, for a long time, both in colonial times and after independence, indigenous ethnic groups seemed incapable of independent development, they were purposefully destroyed or assimilated. For integrated Mestizo Indians in some Latin American countries, special terms have been adopted aimed at erasing their Indian origin. European liberalism also contributed to the downgrading of the status of Indians and Indian land, which was constantly under attack. Despite the visible positive changes that took place by the end of the XX century in Latin American legislation concerning Indians, they are still forced to fight for their territory, cultural identity, are in a disenfranchised and distressed situation. The article identifies a number of factors (ideological commitment, the nature of the political regime, etc.) that have had one way or another influence on the change in the rhetoric of Latin American elites in setting the indigenist agenda in different time periods. Conclusions are drawn about the variability of the policy of indigenism in these countries at the present stage, depending on a combination of a number of factors.

From trauma to apathy: on the hegemonic force of European authoritarian liberalism

AbstractMichael Wilkinson’s Authoritarian Liberalism puts forward a challenging and controversial claim: the history of European integration and the trajectory of the constitutional orders of the founding Member States have always been driven by authoritarian liberalism. This comment focuses on a certain slack, in Wilkinson’s analysis, between the material constitution of European states and authoritarian liberalism as a form of government. More specifically, the comment highlights the need to retrieve a more conflictual relation between, on one hand, the material constitution of the welfare state and its industrial involvement, and on the other hand, the constitutional forms adopted by authoritarian liberalism.

Россия в преддверии участия в войне идентистов против антиидентистов

The article analyzes the role of Russia in the framework of the current opposition of traditionalists to Western anti-identity influence. In this context, anti-identity is the main characteristic of the modern “new liberalism”, or liberal democracy. It is emphasized that the “new liberalism” has little to do with traditional European liberalism, it has completely different roots, which go also into the Russian soil. The authors see the origins of the “new liberalism” in Marxism, on the basis of which the ideology of overcoming identity was born in the second half of the 20th century. The dictatorship of minorities and a specific form of ostracism – Cancel culture – have become a tool for combating identity as the need to realize one’s connection with any community and its values. In contrast to Western countries, radical forms of anti-identity in Russia were already embodied by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution in the field of gender policy, sexual morality and the national question. The rollback of Soviet policy from Bolshevik maximalism did not lead to a complete return to traditional values, which especially affected family values. From the point of view of the Central and Eastern European traditionalists (Poland, Hungary), whom the leaders of the European Union consider authoritarians, Russia is a defender of traditional values, but there were no statements that the Russian government embodies “true European values” and the ideals of “real” democracy. For many conservative politicians in Western Europe and the USA (Protestants and Catholics, Muslims), although Russia is important as a country that opposes anti-identity, its role is largely symbolic, since in Russia there are no influential political and significant public circles that consistently defend, for example, biblical values, like in the United States (prohibition of abortion, in addition to rejecting same-sex marriage, a high degree of religiosity and protection of the interests of their church, following biblical norms in life).

Ідеї Михайла Драгоманова у вітчизняній інтелектуальній думці на рубежі ХІХ–ХХ століть

The middle of the 19th century has become the age of the first ethnic renaissance of Ukrainianness after almost two centuries of domination of integration, assimilation in their content stereotypes artificially imposed by the authorities of the Russian empire. The awakening of ethnic feelings is mainly the intellectuals’ merit. They, unlike their forerunners of the eighteenth century, are no longer concerned with the search for own family roots, but with the interests of social consciousness formation. Thanks to the powerful intellectual potential of M. Drahomanov and Kyiv Old Community, the idea of decentralization of both empires, in which Ukrainians live, has matured. A few more decades turned out to be enough for these ideas to take the form of a mass political movement, to be merged into a powerful stream of their destruction. The article is dedicated to the study of the problem of comprehension of the political concepts of European liberalism and social democratism and their extrapolation on Ukrainian realities by Ukrainian intellectual thought, mainly in the person of M. Drahomanov. The version of M. Drahomanov’s political program, suggested to the Hromada representatives in the late 1880s, is considered. The national idea has acquired a form of peculiar federal democracy. The ideas of cessation of the confrontation between orthodox and catholics, the motives of ethno-conflicts minimization and the task to create the All-Slavic Radical Party are subsumed to this too broad concept. It is proved, that modelling of attractive image of Ukrainian movement in the world is considered as one of the immediate tasks of M. Drahomanov. The promulgation of the principles of people’s sovereignty is based on a strong support of the citizens, and the idea of the people as the bearer of the highest wisdom has given way to the idea of civil society. State centralization in both empires has been presented as an evil to be saved from as soon as possible. The principle of federalism formulated by him is considered as a way of progress from the imperial mode of government to democratic, European forms of statehood. As a result of M. Drahomanov’s activity and the other representatives of the defending of federative ideas the declaration of federation ideals in the state system has taken place. The ideas of political freedoms and implementation of political rights have got new interpretation, attempts to coordinate human rights and national interests are accomplished, active search for effective model of the local self-government on the base of communities and regions governing has lasted.

Stefano Bottoni. Orbán: Un despota in Europa.

Stefano Bottoni. <i>Orbán: Un despota in Europa.</i>

Liberalism and Mass Psychology: The American Experience

European liberals have viewed themselves as the avatars of the rational individual as opposed to the mob or tyrant. Faced with the populist, democratic, and egalitarian character of US society, Ame...

Raspad multietničkih zajednica / Disintegration of Multi-Ethnic Communities

In the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, the religious communities in Yugoslavia wholeheartedly critiqued the ‘totalitarian communist government’ claiming that it had imposed, from the above, the ideological restraints and suppression of religious freedoms. Therefore, many religious elites accepted the process of Western European liberalization in order to win the fight for religious freedom, as well as to affirm its role and power through free elections. In the anti-communist context, the religious elites insisted on the return to tradition, to ancestors, to the past, and mostly neglecting the narrative of ‘the new future.’ This paper examines the way in which nationalism – which establishes its power through the use of religious symbols in order to unify and mobilize the masses— came to existence after the disintegration of a multi-ethnic state, such as the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the one side, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, on the other. In such a way, religious universalism reduces itself on the particular national myth, which, through the symbol of the victim, constructs the ‘chosen people’ whose politics is not based on joining, connecting with other people, but on separation and division.

Mykhailo Rudnytskyi vs Dmytro Dontsov: Two Visions of Europe and the West

The paper provides an overview of formation images “Europe” and the “West” in the texts of two prominent Ukrainian publicists in interwar Lviv – Mykhailo Rudnytskyi and Dmytro Dontsov. The article focuses on interwar discussions about the image of Europe, the West, and the East, liberalism, and nationalism. Given the fact that all these and related issues, having entered the Ukrainian public space at the beginning of the XX century remains relevant today, it appears reasonable to analyze these interwar discussions, which represent different ways of imaging European culture. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the sources of formation of these images, their content, and discussions around them. The author elaborated on the similarities and differences of these images in the texts of Rudnytskyi and Dontsov. The key element in Mykhailo Rudnytsky's worldview in the interwar period was liberalism or rather “cultural liberalism.” The three main ideological blocks for him were “freedom”, “individuality” and inclusiveness (openness) of cultures. Mykhailo Rudnytsky's image of “Europe” was rather amorphous, without clear boundaries, and took the liberal culture of the nineteenth century as examples of liberal figures. “East” occupied a very little place in the worldview of Michael, and was superimposed on the oriental axis “West (Europe) – civilization”, “East (Asia) – barbarism”. At the same time, geographical boundaries were not particularly important, and European movements, if they did not correspond to the ideal liberal model, could be considered barbaric and “Asian”. Dmytro Dontsov's image of Europe was focused not on the liberal Europe of the XIX century, but the radical right movements in interwar Europe. If Rudnytsky emphasized the ideas of liberalism of the XIX century, individual freedom and synthesis of cultures, and these ideas he wanted to see in the image of “Europe”, for Dontsov “Europe” and European thinkers had value in the context of ideas of expansion, struggle as the basis of the people's spirit. At the same time, in the worldview of Mykhailo Rudnytsky and Dmytro Dontsov, “The East” acted as a barbaric antithesis of the “West”, the personification of all the wild and backward, which made their worldview in this sense oriental. Given the above material, we can state that the images of “Europe” and “West” in the interwar period remained extremely ambivalent and heterogeneous, and their content depended on the worldview of the authors.

,,Prawo do godnej ludzkiej egzystencji” w myśli rosyjskich liberałów pierwszej połowy XX wieku

Russian liberalism differs significantly from European liberalism. One aspect where this differenceis most clearly marked is the acceptance by Russian liberals of socialism as the ultimateform of the socio-economic system. At the same time, they wanted to give socialism a legalform, which has not yet been achieved in European thought. The legal form of socialism was tobe the so-called the right to a dignified human existence. The term was coined by the Slavophilicthinker Wlodzimierz Solowjow and adapted to his own ideas by a number of Russian liberalthinkers: Pawel Nowgorodtsev, Jozef Pokrowski, Bohdan Kistiakowski and Sergiusz Hessen. Thepaper indicates how the content of the “right to a dignified human existence” was formulatedand how it had significance for the views of Russian lawyers on the rule of law and the socioeconomicsystem.

Commissioned Book Review: Jan Zielonka, Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat

Commissioned Book Review: Jan Zielonka, <i>Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat</i>

Strange Bedfellows: A Hyper-pragmatic Alliance between European Liberals and an Illiberal Czech Technocrat

The article deals with the membership of the most important Czech political party, ANO (meaning “yes” in Czech), led by Andrej Babiš, in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Our goals are to reconstruct how Babiš’s party joined ALDE and to discuss the ideological differences between ANO and ALDE. The paper shows that ALDE’s offer of membership in 2014 was motivated by a pragmatic need to bolster its own position in the European Parliament; ANO, meanwhile, needed to anchor itself in European politics. Andrej Babiš’s technocratic and illiberal view was not apparent at the beginning, but more importantly, this did not matter to ALDE. ALDE’s Czech “point of contact,” ANO’s foreign policy expert and the leader of its party group in the European Parliament, Pavel Telička, made ANO’s membership credible. However, as a Euro-optimist, Telička was not compatible with ANO’s flexible ideological character in the long term and the party group split up. A comparison of the parties’ European Parliament election manifestos and positions on crucial controversial European issues clearly reveals a deep division between ALDE and ANO—and their fundamentally opposed ideological positions. We describe the findings as a new hyper-pragmatic trend in the creation of Europarties, which weakens their ideological cohesion.