Liberals and democrats have each tried to subordinate the other tradition’s logic

Evidence

Let’s not forget that, while we tend today to take the link between liberalism and democracy for granted, their union, far from being a smooth process, was the result of bitter struggles. Many liberals and many democrats were perfectly aware of the conflict between their respective logics and of the limits that liberal democracy imposed on the realization of their own objectives. Indeed, both sides have constantly tried to interpret its rules in a way that was better suited to their aims. From the theoretical point of view, some liberals like F. A. Hayek have argued that ‘democracy (is] essentially a means, an utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual frecdom’, useful as long as it did not endanger liberal institutions but to be discarded when it did. Other liberals have followed another strategy, arguing that were the people to decide ‘in a rational manner’ they could not go against rights and liberties and, if they happened to do so, their verdict should not be accepted as legitimate. From the other side, some democrats have been keen to dismiss liberal institutions as ‘bourgeois formal liberties’ and to fight for their replacement by direct forms of democracy in which the will of the people could be expressed without hindrances. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 32

Categorization

• XREF: The permanent contest over liberal democracy’s meaning parallels the reader’s theme of how moral/political norms are sites of ongoing interpretive struggle rather than settled facts. — connects to: Democracy and liberalism can be decoupled and even opposed — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 235; Liberalism and democracy are only contingently articulated, not necessarily linked — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 332

Broader Connections

• Democracy and liberalism can be decoupled and even opposed #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 235
• Liberalism and democracy are only contingently articulated, not necessarily linked #expands (0.74) — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 332