Conference paper
Liberal and Pluralistic Democracy
Jovan Mirić
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author demonstrates how the individual is implied in the very idea and concept of democracy as being free on principle and equal to other such individuals. The emancipation and subjectivization of man in the new era appears to be the fundamental presupposition of every democracy, including, of course, the pluralistic one. In a political community in which the free individual does not happen to be the starting point and the purpose of the political system there is no democracy. Neither is there any demos, and this entity is only possible if a full and unalienable political subjectivity of the individual is presupposed. Without the philosophy and the historical experience of liberalism there would be no possibility for a modern pluralist democracy either. Pluralism suits human nature and relationships among people more all other political forms. Man himself is "structured pluralistically" because of the complex mental structure and the different interests that activate him. No social order or political system based on the principle of collectivity (regardless of its social, national, religious, or philosophical origin) has any chance either to promote social progress or to survive.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
111414
URI
Publication date:
1.9.1993.
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