Liberal democracy
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Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal democracy are: a representative democracy with multiple viable political parties and universal suffrage; a separation of powers into different branches of government, including an independent judiciary; the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society; a market-based capitalist economy with private property; and state-guaranteed protections for the human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms of legally equal citizens.
Under liberal democracy, government authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. In practice, such systems often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. Liberal democracies may take various and mixed forms, such as a constitutional monarchic or republican constitutional system; a parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential governmental system; and a common, civil, or customary legal system. Liberal-democratic regimes are contrasted with illiberal democracies, hybrid regimes, and dictatorships; as well as direct democracies and socialist democracies. Some liberal democracies, especially those with large populations, adopt federalism—as vertical separation of powers—in order to prevent abuse and increase public input by dividing governing powers between municipal, provincial, and national governments. Relative to authoritarian regimes, the characteristics of liberal democracies are correlated with increased political stability, lower corruption, better management of resources, and better health indicators such as life expectancy and infant mortality.
Liberal democracy traces its origins—and its name—to the Age of Enlightenment. The conventional views supporting monarchies and aristocracies were challenged at first by a relatively small group of Enlightenment intellectuals, who believed that human affairs should be guided by reason and principles of liberty and equality. They argued that all people are created equal, that governments exist to serve the people—not vice versa—and that laws should apply to those who govern as well as to the governed (a concept known as rule of law), formulated in Europe as Rechtsstaat. In England, thinkers such as John Locke (1632–1704) argued that all people are created equal, that governments exist to serve the governed, and that laws must apply equally to rulers and citizens alike (a concept later expressed as the rule of law). At the same time, on the European continent, French philosophers developed equally influential theories: Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748) advanced the doctrine of separation of powers, Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) articulated the principle of popular sovereignty and the "general will", and Voltaire championed freedom of conscience and expression. These ideas were central to the French Revolution and spread widely across Europe and beyond. They also influenced the American Revolution and the broader development of liberal democracy. After a period of expansion in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy became a prevalent political system in the world.