The roots of liberal and illiberal democracy: Political theory, collective memory and conflicting visions of sovereignty in Europe

The fall of communism in 1989 ended the division the European continent, allowing the states previously trapped behind the iron curtain to ‘return’ to Europe. Following the accession of the first postcommunist states to the European Union in 2004, however, new divisions regarding their differing understandings of democracy emerged. My basic thesis is that these divergent understandings of liberal and ‘illiberal’ democracy–which correspond to the theoretical division between liberal rights protection and the republican tradition based on majoritarian popular sovereignty–are rooted in collective remembrance. Whereas memory cultures organized around the defeat of National Socialism in 1945 emphasize the need to protect fundamental human rights, those organized around the fall of communism in 1989 emphasize domestic popular sovereignty. Building on Jürgen Habermas’s discursive model, I argue that a European public sphere is necessary to mediate these between these different memories and the differing conceptions of the democracy they foster.