We have lost two valuable decades to respond adequately to globalization and the crisis of liberal democracy and open societies.

Many Islamists may in fact prefer an illiberal to a liberal democracy. But liberals who truly favor democracy must accept that Islamists are entitled to play a political role, too.

Elites and protesters fellow citizens should respond conscientiously and creatively to moral indignation, comprehending that it is ultimately about an affirmation of liberal democracy, and not about all out revolution, let alone nihilism. And they should seek to calm anger and defuse outrage, which can be a serious threat to liberal democracy.

Democracy in this sense what many call liberal democracy flourished only after the emergence of the nation state and the popular upheaval and mobilization produced by the Industrial Revolution. So it should come as no surprise that the crisis of liberal democracy that many of its oldest practitioners currently are experiencing is a reflection of the stress under which the nation state finds itself.

The relatively successful election in Iraq is a major victory for democracy, but not necessarily for liberal reform in the Middle East.

Terrorists hope to create a climate of fear and insecurity that will provoke us to harm ourselves by undercutting the quality of our own liberal democracy. Preventing new terrorist attacks while understanding and avoiding the mistakes of the past will be essential if we are to preserve and support liberal democracy both at home and abroad.

By contrast, India, with its firmly rooted liberal democracy, smells to some like roses. But many believe that India, too, faces uncertain political prospects.

Well, I come from the former Soviet Republic of Belarus, which, as some of you may know, is not exactly an oasis of liberal democracy.

Such concrete proposals for political reform inspired by Confucian values can rarely be published in mainland China. In fact, there are fewer constraints imposed on public discussion of liberal democratic institutions precisely because few Chinese are inspired by Western style liberal democracy.

But the liberal deviseth liberal things and by liberal things shall he stand.

But the liberal deviseth liberal things and by liberal things shall he stand.

Faced with this uncertainty about the future of liberal democracy in Russia, how should western countries respond? This question is particularly difficult for the Bush administration, which is torn between the president s early endorsement of Putin and his pro democracy agenda.

So what should the US and other governments that support liberal democracy do now? The answer could affect Egypt s political future and that of countries throughout the region.

What one might call the liberal order requires at least two institutional ingredients. One is democracy, including elections and governments held to account by parliaments and ultimately the people.

Western capitalism s model of a society based on near universal affluence and liberal democracy looks increasingly ineffective compared to the competition. Authoritarian countries middle classes may push their leaders toward greater democracy, as in Russia, but Western democracies will also likely become more authoritarian.

Because the dictatorships in America s client states ended more or less when the Cold War did, and were replaced by liberal democracies, many were lulled into the comforting belief that liberal democracy and capitalism would naturally even inevitably come together everywhere. Political freedom is good for business, and vice versa.

In fact, support for democracy corresponds with a number of other liberal attitudes that we found in Saudi Arabia. Supporters of democracy tend to be less religious, more secular, more tolerant of others, more critical of public sector performance, and more concerned with Western cultural invasion.

In 1989, liberal democracy triumphed over the socialist ideology incarnated and promoted by the Soviet Bloc. For many of his supporters, it was President Ronald Reagan who, with his deliberate escalation of the arms race, pushed the Soviet economy to the brink, thereby fully demonstrating the superiority of liberal societies and free markets.

But this is different from saying that there is a universal desire to live in a liberal society that is, a political order characterized by a sphere of individual rights and the rule of law. The desire to live in a liberal democracy is, indeed, something acquired over time, often as a byproduct of successful modernization.

Europe s Neo Liberal Challenge

Russia s Illiberal Liberal Empire

Liberal democratic party LDS

Not since the 1930 s has popular disgust with politicians in Europe, the US, as well as Japan, run so high. This is dangerous, because such sentiments can end in disgust with liberal democracy itself.

In truth, liberal arts education no longer exists at least genuine liberal arts education in this country.

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama claimed in a famous essay that the Cold War s end marked the end of ideological evolution, the end of history, with the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. Yet, two decades on, the global spread of democracy has been encountering increasingly strong headwinds.

Attracting neighbors has long been a noble aspiration and something of a European specialty. The European Union s embrace of post communist republics in Central Europe represented a most powerful symbol of the reach of Western liberal democracy.

Thus, Turkey will continue its unprecedented amalgam of Islam, capitalism, and secular liberal democracy. As unlikely as it may seem in the wake of the crisis over Gül s candidacy, so far Turkey is managing this challenge well.

The Kremlin is trying desperately to convince Russians that liberal democracy is bad, and that life under Putin is good. That requires not only spreading damaging lies at home, but also sowing violence and instability among its neighbors.

No country rivals America s promotion of the rule of law, liberal democracy, transparency, and free enterprise. While other countries certainly support these values, only the US has been willing, healthy, and big enough to ensure that they prevail.

More than the advancement of science is at stake here. The Vatican s stance on the Italian vote is emblematic of a broader threat to the very foundation of modern liberal democracy the constitutional separation of Church and State.

The West s greatest strength is democracy it is what has enabled us to secure peace for two generations and bring an end to communist rule in Europe almost without a shot being fired. Though liberal democracy is far from perfect, it remains the best defense against extremism and intolerance and the most powerful facilitator of human progress.

Iran has long qualified as what the American foreign policy analyst Fareed Zakaria has called an illiberal democracy. Turkey, for its part, seemed to be on a path toward true liberal democracy, notwithstanding the criticism of those who pointed to Erdoğan s jailing of journalists and generals it is now backsliding for all the world to see.

Orbán claimed earlier this year that liberal democracy was no longer a viable model. He cited China and Russia as more successful countries, not for ideological reasons, but because he thinks that they are more competitive in today s world.

Many in Musharraf s own army despise him for the same reason. For Pakistan s small and embattled liberal and left wing forces, he is yet another military dictator who seized and holds power by force, undermining the development of democracy.

It is equally important that citizens should consider it their duty to commit themselves to the principles of liberal democracy. It is everyone s task to counter extremism actively and speak out about radical statements, in public and in private.

China is an obvious example of capitalist success and lagging political reform. For these countries, honest competition at the ballot box, free and open debate, and respect for minority rights the foundation of liberal democracy are not currently on the agenda.

But they are anti liberal they accept democracy s demand for the popular legitimacy, but reject its demand for constitutionalism (the separation of powers). They do not believe that constitutional norms and representative democracy have primacy over values and legitimate popular grievances.

The first feature of the liberal order is that democracies must not tolerate those who set out to destroy democracy. Some countries, like Germany, have laws that make it possible to ban political parties whose programs are recognizably anti democratic.

He has a book, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, and the Liberal Age, he defines as 19th century and early 20th century.

Indeed, precisely because liberal democracy did not triumph worldwide, many pressing crises now require attention and action. But we must also focus in the media and in the classroom on the less dramatic but nonetheless dangerous attacks on democracy and democratic values, including in the Americas, where statist regimes and others have been attacking freedom of speech and of the press.

Another aspect of America s domestic practice of liberal democracy that is currently being debated is how the US deals with the threat of terrorism. In the climate of extreme fear that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration engaged in tortured legal interpretations of international and domestic law that tarnished American democracy and diminished its soft power.

A second lesson of recent events in Iran and Turkey is that the spectrum of government in the Middle East and North Africa runs from autocracy and theocracy to varieties of managed democracy. No country qualifies as a full liberal democracy that is, as a political system that combines free and fair elections with constitutional protections of individual rights for all its citizens.

But, you know, even beyond that, if you think about the logic underlying it, is something I call iPod liberalism, where we assume that every single Iranian or Chinese who happens to have and love his iPod will also love liberal democracy.

That is bad news for citizens, not just for politicians. By leading the charge to reinvigorate democracy, centrist reformers can draw on the best of the liberal traditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to ensure Latin America s success in the new millennium.

Long before you have a liberal democracy, you have to have a functioning state (something that never disappeared in Germany or Japan after they were defeated in World War II). This is something that cannot be taken for granted in countries like Iraq.