1. Rights, Democracy, and Illiberalism in Europe
Center for War Studies
Rights, Democracy, and Illiberalism in Europe
Vincent Charles Keating
28 September 2018

2. Overview Why am I talking about this? Rights and the War on Terror
26 September 2018

3. Overview Why am I talking about this? Rights and the War on Terror
Russian Illiberal Ideological Influence
26 September 2018

4. Overview Why am I talking about this? Rights and the War on Terror
Russian Illiberal Ideological Influence
Two former students who wrote masters theses on populism in Europe
26 September 2018

5. Central Question
Why is it difficult to come to a conclusion over what to do about illiberal groups/movements within Europe?
A question found on both sides of the political spectrum
Right wing: Illiberal immigrant groups
Left wing: Illiberal nationalist groups
What holds them together is a fear over the potential deprivation of freedoms and rights, either to groups or the entire society
At what point can liberal governments/societies be illiberal in their response to illiberal groups/movements?
26 September 2018

6. Central Question
26 September 2018

7. Central Question
26 September 2018

8. Liberalism and Liberty
“[The law of nature] obliges everyone [...] being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions”
- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
Basic idea of liberal liberty/freedom:
People should be able to pursue their own good;
So long as they do not harm other people
26 September 2018

9. Liberalism and Liberty
First idea is quite popular – everyone likes the idea of pursuing their own version of the good
Second idea is where all of the problems exist
Citizens should be prohibited from harming others in the course of their perusal of their own good
Directly feeds into the idea of when liberal governments/societies can be illiberal
But there is no commonly accepted way of assessing the nature of the harm – why?
26 September 2018

10. Three Complications to the Harm Principle
What is considered to be a harm of sufficient quality, that it requires some type of intervention?
What is the trade-off between liberty and harm that might lead us to tolerate or not tolerate state/society interventions
Is the harm from others actually a harm, that is, an unwanted intrusion into personal liberty to pursue ones own good, and how can we tell?
26 September 2018

11. What is the Nature of Harm?
Harm from the state
Protected by human rights legislation
Focus on negative rights – prohibitions on certain state actions
Harm from others
Bodily harm – protected by legal prohibition
Other harms? Many political debates are framed by a contestation over the nature and extent of harm
Particularly if it results in a perceived reduction in rights/freedom
26 September 2018

12. Freedoms, Rights, and Harm
When do actions become so harmful, that they should be result in either legal or social punishment?
Yelling ‘fire’ falsely in a crowded theatre
Shouting racist abuse at someone
Supporting a far-right/left political party that has a xenophobic manifesto
Expressing a political opinion that demeans women
Cat-calling
Telling someone that they’re an asshole
Not buying your round when it’s time to buy your round
26 September 2018

13. Beer Break!
26 September 2018

14. Tolerance for Intervention
What is the appropriate level of tolerance to illiberal behaviour/conduct?
How immediately do we punish illiberal conduct?
What effect might this have on deliberative democracy?
Two potential ends of the spectrum
Actual choice will be something in between
Libertarian liberalism
Maximum freedom
Authoritarian liberalism
Maximum harm prevention
26 September 2018

15. Libertarian Liberalism
The state never interferes with breaches of liberal values
Stresses freedom of action so long as it does not directly result in direct bodily harm
Sole exception: threat to the liberal state itself
Must accept that other harms will occur
Deliberative democracy: Minimizes exclusion of ideas/beliefs/groups
Center for War Studies
26 September 2018

16. Authoritarian Liberalism
The state interferes in any perceived breach of liberal values
Position stresses harm done by illiberal conduct over loss of freedom
Heavily politicizes accepted values
Control over the state -> control over social behaviour
Deliberative democracy: Maximizes exclusion of ideas/beliefs/groups
Center for War Studies
26 September 2018

17. Social Structure/Environment
Structure and Agency
All humans have agency: we can independently decide what we want to do
This is why we can have ethical judgements about our behaviour
Humans are shape, and are shaped by, their social environment
This is rarely absolute in either direction
Two potential sources of illiberalism
Illiberal structures/environments
Supporting illiberal structures
Social Structure/Environment
Human Agency
26 September 2018

18. Structure and Agency in Liberal Politics
Many political debates are highly structured by ideas of which level should be prioritized
Inequality (right – agency; left – structure)
Gay rights (right – agency; left – structure)
Immigrant cultural practices (left – agency; right – structure)
#metoo – male behaviour (left – agency/structure; right – structure)
The problem for policy makers is that the answer is often both, and it is difficult to tell exactly to what degree
26 September 2018

19. Population Heterogeneity in the Effects of Structure
Structural forces play into different individuals in different ways
Why do individuals in groups participate in illiberal practices that (seemingly) harm them?
Forced upon them by culture/family (structure)
Free expression of culture/rebellion (agency)
Both factors can exist in a population at the same time at different levels across different people, so what is the best policy?
26 September 2018

20. Why Other Harms are Harmful
Non-bodily harm is seen as harmful because of the agency-structure system
Social structures can lead human agents to engage in harmful behaviour to others (racism, sexism, etc.)
Agency that reproduces these ideas, while not directly harmful, reproduces the harmful environment
Social Structure/Environment
Human Agency
26 September 2018

21. Why’d You Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated?
There are several simultaneous decisions that need to be made with respect to what we should do about illiberal behaviour:
What constitutes a harm that is of a sufficient quality to take political action?
What is the general degree of acceptance for the trade-offs between liberty and harm?
To what degree is the harm actually a harm, that is, an unwanted intrusion into personal agency, as opposed to a freely chosen behaviour?
26 September 2018

22. Why does this matter?
Maintaining deliberative democracy in a twitterstorm world
Political disagreements can arise not because the other side is dumb/ethically compromised, but because the underlying problems are very complicated
Small changes in initial assumptions lead to large changes in policy suggestions
There are potentially unavoidable ethical trade-offs to consider
More direct action against harms could lead to greater politicization of political power and the alienation of groups finding themselves on the outside
26 September 2018