A relatively new political-theoretical concept has captured the attention of researchers -authoritarian liberalism. Two recent books provide the foundation for understanding this concept: The Ungovernable Society: A Genealogy of Authoritarian Liberalism (2018/2021, English translation) by philosopher Grégoire Chamayou, and Authoritarian Liberalism and the Transformation of Modern Europe (2021) by legal theorist Michael Wilkinson. Both authors trace the roots of authoritarian liberalism to the "fear of democracy" that took hold in Western societies in the post-World War II era, linking it to the development of neoliberal (and ordoliberal) ideas about the separation of state and economy in a way that allows for the coexistence of political authoritarianism and economic freedoms. According to Wilkinson, who also provides a good working definition of the concept, authoritarian liberalism refers to "the phenomenon of liberalism being enforced by authoritarian means, in ways that avoid strong democratic accountability." Additionally, both Chamayou and Wilkinson trace the concept back to the German legal theorist Hermann Heller, particularly his 1933 article Authoritarian Liberalism?, where he criticizes Carl Schmitt's theory of the state.
The "fear of democracy," as the root of authoritarian liberalism, refers to a trend of disobedience that spread through Western societies in the postwar period, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. Chamayou argues that during this period, "no relationship of domination was left untouched: insubordination in the hierarchy between sexes and genders, in the colonial and racial orders, in the hierarchies of class and labor, in families, on campuses, in the armed forces, on the shop floor, in offices, and on the street." Governing and managing society became increasingly difficult. The process of capitalist accumulation and maintaining the political legitimacy of the liberal state was threatened by a crisis of governance, whose causes were identified in worker indiscipline, full employment policies, the welfare state's safety net, and strong unions.
The solution, as Chamayou demonstrates, was found in halting the problematic processes of democratization, but in a way that preserved both economic efficiency and political legitimacy (threatened by social conflicts and the unresolved externalized social costs of capitalist production). Here, a new "liberal art of governance" was born, consisting of two elements: the withdrawal of the state from the economic sphere and control over social conflict caused by the excess of democracy. On the side of the demand for "state withdrawal," this is a well-known story that we recognize in the history of neoliberalism. However, Chamayou adds several new insights here. If neoliberal doctrine was built on the premise that the liberal order could only be preserved at the cost of limiting democracy – that is, that the functioning of capitalism requires non-interference from popular sovereignty – it was precisely the state that had to take on the task of keeping social-democratic excess as far away as possible from the economic field of free exchange, production, and profit accumulation.
In this sense, as Chamayou shows, the "neoliberal phobia" of the state is only partially accurate. The logical conclusion of neoliberal doctrine is not the libertarian vision of negative freedom but rather an authoritarian-liberal state as the guarantor of the "free market." Its role, in this regard, is neither "minimal" nor merely limited to guarding the fairness of market competition. On the contrary, it must constantly intervene to "save capitalism from its self-destructive tendencies." However, and here lies the basis of authoritarian liberalism as understood by Chamayou, it must do so in a way that leaves capitalist relations of economic freedom intact. Thus, a "politically authoritarian but economically liberal state" emerges; that is, social regulation and a strong state for the unruly masses, but economic liberalism and freedoms for industries and enterprises.
This perfected a new "liberal technology of governance." Where the state withdrew from the economy, the space for freedom did not expand. On the contrary, state structures of authority were replaced by the private power of managers and owners, a corporate authority analogous to political power. As Chamayou patiently demonstrates, the neoliberal depoliticization of economic relations went hand in hand with the establishment of new structures of authoritarianism relatively autonomous from sources of state power. This was the "cunning" of neoliberalism: the factory and the enterprise took over the state's burden of governance in the economic sphere and eased its function of legitimization and organization of consent. Market-conditioned discipline in this context represents a non-state mode of governance. In the author's words, "What governments are struggling to do voluntarily, the discipline of competition will impose mechanically." In this vein, the author interprets the neoliberal imperative of privatization not as deregulation but as re-regulation. What remains deregulated by state means is regulated by the levers of economic power. Thus, no longer by the state's repressive apparatus or ideology, but by the discipline of the competitive market and the pressures of unemployment, inflation, alienation, and the repetitiveness of the work process. The result is a "disciplinary state" that oversees and controls the masses prone to the excesses of democracy and equality but stops at the gates of the factory, corporation, or bank, leaving the private economic power its own domain of freedom and jurisdiction over workers and consumers.
A similar narrative is found in Wilkinson's work, but from the perspective of the integration and constitutionalization of the European Economic Community, or the European Union. It was the project, which from the outset, Wilkinson argues, has been marked by the de-democratization and depoliticization of the economy, separating the newly constituted international free market from the reach of democratic institutions. In this sense, the much-discussed "democratic deficit" of the EU is not an accidental byproduct but an inherent feature of the integration process based on economic foundations. The constitutional architecture of the European Union was meant to create a buffer zone between economic freedoms and popular sovereignty, based on legalistic, technocratic, and transnational forms of governance.
What Wilkinson calls authoritarian liberalism, albeit with the addition of "soft," denotes a new type of liberal order that aimed to neutralize the "dangers of mass democracy" and offer a model of economic liberalism purged of the remnants of political liberalism. The political power of the state, which due to its national basis was within the reach of democratic pressures, was supposed to be as dispersed as possible in the European project across a series of supposedly non-political institutions: "independent regulatory agencies, independent central banks, and strong constitutional courts— whose legitimacy depended not on popularity but on expertise." This was intended to achieve two things, Wilkinson emphasizes: to curb the processes of postwar democratization and to secure legitimacy based on independent technocratic expertise that is not subject to democratic demands. The consequences are well-known: an even stronger narrowing of democratic mechanisms, their formalization as a purely technical procedure for the selection of elites, and the decline of parliamentary power in favor of various branches of executive power that no longer need to justify themselves by popular support but rely on an external, non-political, and non-democratic principle of expertise. For all other excesses of mass society – unions, strikes, protests, disobedience – there is a strong repressive state apparatus, equipped with police and technological means of suppression. Therefore, for Wilkinson, authoritarian liberalism embodies the formula of a strong state as the guarantor of a free economy. That is, a strong national state for democratic masses, but freedom supported by transnational and technocratic institutions for economic subjects, corporations, and banks.
Finally, how much explanatory power does this relatively new concept of authoritarian liberalism have? And does it offer added value compared to the already established concept of neoliberalism? Here, I wanted to point out the basic conceptual premises without delving into broader theoretical debates. It is a resurrected concept that the authors mentioned here believe is more precise than neoliberalism because it directly points to the specific type of order behind neoliberal ideas. Whether "authoritarian liberalism" will take root among political scientists or commentators in Croatia remains to be seen.
