...On what grounds have liberals defended constitutionalism? Liberals see constitutionalism as the practice of a limited government brought about by the existence of a constitution. The liberal support for constitutionalism is separated into two forms; external and internal constraints. This is important within liberalism because it allows the individual to be free from restrictions and stop the threat on individual liberty. External constraints limit powers of the government bodies and politicians, usually through legal checks. The most notable of which is a written constitution, this codifies what the government institutions can and cannot do. A written constitutional is written down in one single document, for example the US constitution. Within liberalism protecting the individual is most important aspect. Therefore liberals defends constitutionalism because an external constraint entrenches individual right by providing legal definition about the relationship between the state and the individuals themselves. The US constitution refers to this as the “bill of rights”. If there are no legal constraints, the government could act to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Internal constraints disperse the power among a number of institutions. This in turn creates a network of “checks and balances”. Montesquieu stated that “power should be a check to power”. Liberals defend constitutionalism because it stops the development of absolute authority or dictatorial power and...
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...Liberalism refers to the political school of thought which revolves around enabling individuals whilst also protecting them in order to preserve their freedom and liberty. A positive view of human nature underpins the liberal belief that all people are rational and considerate and are able to decide which types of political organisations etc. can best protect individual needs and promote individualism. Liberalism aims to facilitate a political culture which is both tolerant and pluralistic. The pillars on which liberalism was built on suggest that the protection of human rights as well as the promotion of constitutional reform is both intrinsic in liberal aims and ideology. Liberals championed the idea of constitutional reform links to Constitutionalism which refers to the practice of limited government brought about by the existence of a constitution that aims to protect individuals from the threat of tyrannical government. It aims to protect liberty through the establishment of internal and external checks on government power. Liberals place great weight on constitutionalism and it could be argued to be one of the pillars of the whole political ideology, upon which all other fundamental tenets such as toleration, pluralism and justice, lie. Without constitutionalism, it would be difficult to guarantee these other doctrines. The Government within the UK exercises great power which results in the constant threat of tyranny, which liberalism as a political concept is aware of...
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...stateless society is merely an anarchist fantasy.’ Discuss. Section A = Explain the key ideas associated with revisionist socialism. On what grounds have conservatives supported paternalism? Explain the link between liberalism and constitutionalism. Why do anarchists view the state as inherently evil and oppressive? Why did Marx believe that capitalism is doomed to collapse, and how did he think this collapse would occur? Jan 2013 Section B To what extent do conservatives support tradition and continuity? ‘Anarchism is merely an extreme form of socialist collectivism.’ Discuss. To what extent have modern liberals departed from the ideas of classical liberalism? Section A = On what grounds have conservatives justified private property? Explain the link between liberalism and individualism. Why have democratic socialists believed that the victory of ‘gradualism’ is inevitable? On what grounds have anarchists rejected constitutionalism and consent? Explain how the neoliberal and neoconservative views of the role of the state differ June 2012 Section B Conservatism merely reflects the interests of the privileged and prosperous. Discuss To what extent have socialists favoured the common ownership of wealth Liberalism is defined by the desire to minimise the role of the state Section A Distinguish between negative and positive freedom. Explain the link between anarchism and utopianism. Why have some socialists advocated revolution...
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...Edexcel A2 Political Ideologies 1 Liberalism A Short-answer questions 1 Distinguish between economic liberalism and social liberalism. • Economic liberalism means both classical liberalism and neo-liberal economic theory. • Its core idea is the notion of the self-regulating market, based on Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ and the belief that the market tends towards long-term equilibrium. • Individuals are seen as rational, self-interested and largely self-sufficient; and market competition ensures choice and consumer responsiveness as well as efficiency and growth. • In line with the principle of laissez-faire, the state should leave the economy alone because state intervention is likely to have more economic disadvantages than advantages. • Economic liberalism is associated with negative freedom. • Social liberalism, by contrast, is modern liberalism, also sometimes known as welfare liberalism, associated with the belief that an unregulated market economy results in an unequal and unfair distribution of wealth. • The state, therefore, has important social responsibilities, especially in safeguarding individuals from the social evils that can cripple their existence: poverty, disease, unemployment etc. • Social liberalism is thus linked to a qualified form of welfarism: the desire to help people to help themselves, thus still reflecting a general liberal preference for self-reliance. • Social liberalism is associated with positive freedom...
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...1. constitutionalism, constitutional supremacy and the rule of law 1. constitutionalism a. Constitution without constitutionalism? Keith E Whittington, constitutionalism [5] * Constitutionalism = the constraining of government in order to better effectuate the fundamental principles of the political regime. i.e. A system of effective restrains on governmental action. * Constitution (often) = the written document that formalizes the framework of government * => Constitutionalism should be distinguished from the mere possession of a constitution * Written constitutions may provide few effective constraints on government or may be ignored, and governments may be effectively constrained w/o a written constitution (e.g. Britain) * Constitutionalism often (does not mean it necessarily equals to) associated specifically with liberalism, protection of individual rights against the state. * => constitutional state identified not by possession of a constitution but by its effective protection of individual rights. * (but individual rights only one set of fundamental principles that might impose meaningful limits on power of the state) * Constitutionalism also used to constrain power holders to care for the common weal or adhere to particular conceptions of national identity or religious law * 3-fold classification of province of constitutionalism * Normative Constitutionalism (most touched-on area) * Concerned with...
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...LIBERALISM QUESTIONS – A2 (UNIT 4) Short Answers 1. Why do liberals support constitutionalism and consent? (Jan 02) Constitutionalism is a belief in limited government brought about through external (usually legal) and internal (institutional) checks on the exercise of power. Consent is the idea that govt power should be based on the agreement of the governed, usually expressed through regular and competitive elections. Liberals support constitutionalism and consent because they fear that govt may become a tyranny against the individual, based on the assumption that power is inherently corrupting and concentrations of power will lead to absolute corruption. This assumption is rooted in the liberal view of human nature: as individualism implies self- interest, those with power over others are apt to abuse it for their benefit and at the expense of others. Liberal constitutionalism is expressed through support for various external and internal devices, such as codified constitutions, bills of rights, the separation of powers, federalism or devolution, and so on. Liberal support for consent is evident in support for electoral democracy in general and, more specifically, sympathy for referendums and proportional representation. 2. Distinguish between negative freedom and positive freedom, and explain the implications of each for the state. (Jun 02) Negative freedom is the absence of external constraints upon the individual, usually understood as non-interference...
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...Conservatives wanted to look back at tradition and hierarchal structures while Liberals were on a forward moving mission. Nineteenth-century Liberalism was an ideology that began during the Enlightenment Era and strengthened after the French Revolution. It was an idea that placed first importance on the individual, natural rights, life, liberty, and equality, including property rights and personal freedoms. (britanica.com liberalism) The nineteenth-century liberals believed that each individual had fundamental rights and that every citizen should be able to work their way up through the social classes of the nation. Liberals were made up of primarily the middle class and they were of the belief that government should stay out of things. Their goal was total economic, personal and political freedom....
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...Question: How does international political economy impact on your life in Belgium? Introduction International political economy also known as global political economy is an academic discipline within the social sciences that analyzes international relations in combination with political economy. As an interdisciplinary field it draws on many distinct academic schools, most notably political science and economics, but also sociology, history, and cultural studies. International political economy is concerned with the ways in which political forces (states, institutions, individuals, etc.) shape the systems through which economic interactions are expressed, and equally the effect that economic interactions have on political structures and outcomes. International political economy has various categories that help to describe and explain the different political and economic policies that various states, institutions and individuals may choose to be interested in. These categories are liberal, realist and Marxist. In this essay I will be exploring the different categories and the impact they would have on the international political economy of Belgium. History & Summary of Belgium Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. It is a small, highly developed and densely populated country with approximately 10 million inhabitants at the cross-roads of Western Europe. Belgium is one of the founding members of the European Community, and its capital...
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...Hobbes describes realism as all men interacting in anarchy and are equal. They are motivated by competition (scarcity), glory and diffidence. Realism emphasizes on constrains on politics imposed by egoism and the absence of anarchy which require ‘the primacy in all political life of power and security’ (Donnelly, 2009).Realists rely on themselves and do not recognize any authority in anyone and pursue power at all cost at national interest to achieve sovereignty which results them to maximize their military power to ensure survival. This leads to security dilemma (Dunne & Schimdt, 2011). The main difference between classical realism and neo-realism is the determinants of state behaviour. For neo-realists, the balance of power is a main motivation due to human nature According to the 6 principles of Morgenthau’s Politics of Nation, politics is governed by laws created by human nature and revolves around the concept of interest, defined in terms of power. This leads to classical realists being pessimistic. States act in a selfish and competitive manner in a constant state of anarchy seeking power. Neo-realists however think that economic resources and military powers are important to influence other states to achieve hegemonic stability (Dunne & Schimdt, 2011). Realism revolves around 3 core elements; statism, survival and self-help. Statism is the ideology that instils the belief that community are protected and sustained by states. This allows the states to increase their...
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...the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority. - advocates limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, individual liberties including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets Slide 2 Liberalism started as a major doctrine and intellectual endeavour in response to the religious wars gripping Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, up until the cold war • Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy. It included the ideas of self-determination, the primacy of the individual and the nation, as opposed to the family, the state, and religion, as being the fundamental units of law, politics and economy. • Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting several foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as nobility, established religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. • The first notable incarnation of liberal unrest came with the American Revolution, and liberalism fully flowered as a comprehensive movement against the old order during the French Revolution, which set the pace for the future development of human history. SLIDE 3 • The early liberal thinker John Locke, who is often credited for the creation of liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition, employed the concept of natural rights and the social contract to...
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...[Please do not circulate or cite without permission] Written Constitutions and Unwritten Constitutionalism Mark D. Walters Faculty of Law Queen’s University February 2007 To Be Published In: Grant Huscroft (ed.), Expounding the Constitution: Essays in Constitutional Theory (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) I. Introduction Defending the idea of ‘unwritten law’ has never been easy. Jeremy Bentham thought the very expression to be a ‘paradoxical and unmeaning epithet’.[1] In his view, social reform required ‘fixed and accurate’ laws—laws that ‘[w]e see, we hear, we touch; in short we handle…’[2] This empirical concept of law follows from the ideal of law as something produced by conscious acts of sovereign will. Central to this concept are, to use H.L.A. Hart’s expression, ‘rules of change’ that permit societies to escape the confines of ‘primitive’ custom.[3] The progressive march of legal theory, it may be said, has been away from medieval notions of law as customs practiced time out of mind or as the immutable dictates of natural law, away from the fiction that judges discover rather than make law, and towards modern notions of law as creative political acts recorded in writing. In terms of constitutional law, this march leads to the idea of written constitutionalism, a destination that the rebelling American colonists are often said to have reached first.[4] It was a task especially ‘reserved’ to the American people, wrote...
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...argued that the individual civilizations will be strengthened under the globalization, and they will also clash with each other, finally cause more conflicts in his Clash of Civilizations. Huntington claims that the globalization will bring further conflicts. His theories of Clash of Civilizations are raised as a new paradigm after cold war. The theory caused wide debate in the United States and around the world when it was raised. The main idea of his theory is, in the post-cold war world, culture and ideology rather than the political mechanism or economic system, became the most significant difference between countries, and the globalization and the cultural difference will cause further conflicts. “ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state often have little resonance outside the West”. He also argues that although the United States is undoubtedly the most powerful country in the world, western civilization is also the primary ideology in the world. Western civilization is not the universal value, many societies and countries have their own culture and ideology, they urge to pursue local traditions, values and customs. For them, the western civilization is cultural imperialism and western arrogance. “All the world, obviously, or almost all the world certainly, wants to modernize, develop, become more prosperous and so forth. But that does not necessarily...
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...From the inauguration of state organised welfare the concepts of ‘need’ and inequality have been at the centre of discussions and debates on social policy. Since the 19th century it has widely been accepted that the state has some responsibility towards attempting to fulfil some of civil society’s needs and the needs of those most at risk. Changing definitions and attitudes surround the concepts of need and inequality; this means any discussion of these instantly encapsulates the political and ideological debates which affect all aspects of social policy. Titmuss (ed. 1987) writes that ‘collectively provided services are deliberately designed to meet certain socially recognized ‘needs’; they are manifestations’ this means any changes within these are interrelated with those in society. Miller (1987) draws from Titmuss’s work explaining that the inequality which creates need is formed from the very nature of an advanced industrial society as ‘the costs of economic growth and stability are not evenly distributed’ he describes the welfare state as ‘compensation for the vulnerable who pay the prices of ‘progress’ (1987). This essay seeks to examine the concept of need within social policy by looking at how it became recognised in the 19th century and how it was defined in the 20th century. This will include looking at what social legislation has been borne out of its recognition. I will also look at the changing attitudes towards inequality and the left/right political and ideological...
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...To what extent do liberals disagree over freedom? (15) Liberals believe that each human being is an individual who is rational. Therefore implying that each individual should have freedom. However the extent to this freedom causes a divide within liberals, as shown by Isiah Berlin who distinguished between ‘negative’ liberty and ‘positive’ liberty. Liberals disagree over the extent and nature of freedom. ‘Negative’ liberty supported by classic liberals implies that individuals should be free from constraint, free from external restriction and a lack of interference allowing for freedom of choice therefore a need for the rolling back of the state. This firm belief in individualism-as humans are rational, leads to the classic liberal belief that individuals can flourish without state intervention as human beings are self-interested creatures who are self-reliant and therefore create an atomistic society. This freedom supported by classic liberals allows individuals to act as they wish whatever the consequences as the consequences can’t be said to limit freedom (as that would be against their belief of complete freedom) but are bad luck, not caused by the state therefore the objects that interfere with the classic liberals ideas of freedom include state legislations not natural occurrences that can’t be stopped. Therefore they believe in the silence of the laws to ensure freedom. Modern liberals on the other hand who believe in ‘positive’ freedom have a different idea of the...
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...What are the challenges for a universal conception of human rights? AIR234: Order and Justice in World Politics Brian Introduction Human rights…are those rights and privileges held to belong to any person, regardless of any provision that may or may not exist for them in their legal system, simply because, as a human being, there are things which they may not be forbidden by any government. Exactly what the list of these rights is, or why we are entitled to them, varies from thinker to thinker.[1] Human rights are rights to which every person is entitled simply by virtue of being a human living in a society of other humans. Among these are the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person.[2] Challenges for a Universal Conception of Human Rights: The most intense debate among human rights in the past two decades has been dichotomy between Universalists and cultural relativists. Just as development or modernizations theories presumed a “transition” from traditional to industrial society; it was frequently assumed by universities that non-western cultures will gradually evolve so that the Universalist doctrine of human rights will prevail. Challenges for a Universal conception of Human rights presuppose the value of autonomy, which would lead to some variation in human-rights practice in different cultural and socio-economic conditions. The most difficult case is that in which those who are victims of human-rights violations support the culture that legitimates...
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