Triumph and Twilights of One Great Teaching

253
DOI: 10.20542/0131-2227-2018-62-8-110-119

K. Gadzhiev (zuhrabvi@yandex.ru), 
Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO), 23, Profsoyuznaya Str., Moscow 117997, Russian Federation 

Abstract. The article attempts to identify and analyze the most important factors of the crisis of values, ideas, principles of the liberalism that underlie political democracy. It is shown that liberalism and political democracy themselves represent answers to the challenges created by the transition of countries and peoples of the West from the Middle Ages to the New Time in the 16th-18th centuries. Being oriented toward a radical break with the past, they laid ideological and political foundation for the Great Transformation, in the process of which the new capitalist rationalistic civilization based on such values as human rights and freedoms, market economy and rule of law replaced forms of the medieval state system. It is emphasized that they originated in a relatively narrow group of peoples of the Euro-Atlantic world and played a huge role in their economic, technological and social progress. At the same time, the thesis is put forward that liberalism and democracy being historical phenomena are subject to the laws of origin, triumph, gradual decline natural for human communities. Its validity is evidenced by the tendencies and processes that liberalism and political democracy have experienced over the past two-three decades when they reached the highest limit of their development, and in the eyes of the intellectual and political establishment of the West acquired the status of the ultimate Truth. The article shows the factors that contributed to absolutization and emasculation of the values of human rights and freedoms as well as of other related ideas and attitudes, as understood by founding fathers of liberalism and great reformers of the 20th century. The main focus is on substantiating the thesis about possible completion of the liberal order domination era in the states of the Euro-Atlantic region at the country and global level. On that ground, it is concluded that we are witnessing the onset of a new era characterized by tectonic shifts in the existential basis of life with global reach, an existential shift that is equally large, perhaps even superior in its consequences to the Great Transformation that the Western world survived with the transition from the Middle Ages to the New Time

Keywords: liberalism, political democracy, values, freedom, civilization, politics, the old order, the liberal world order, the euro-centrist world, crisis, twilights 


REFERENCES

1. Toynbee A. Postizhenie istorii [Comprehension of History] Moscow, Progress, 1996. 730 p.

2. Flach K.H. Nach eine Ñhance für die Liberalen? Frankfurt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch, 1971. 96 s.

3. Nisbet R. Progress: istoriya idei [History of the Idea of Progress]. Moscow, IRSEN, 2007. 557 p.

4. Schlesinger-jr. A.M. The Age of Jackson. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1945. 577 ð.

5. Henry Kissinger: Neocons are Wrong, but Bush is not the Time to Change (In Russ.) Available at: https://inosmi.ru/world/20041019/213905.html (accessed 14.01.2018).

6. Symes D., Ellsworth R. Moral’ amerikanskogo realizma [Moral of American Realism]. Russia in Global Affairs, 2005, no. 1. Available at: http://globalaffairs.ru/number/n_4465 (accessed 14.01.2018).

7. Zakaria F. Budushchee svobody: neliberal’naya demokratiya v SSHA i za ikh predelami [The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy in the US and Beyond] Available at: https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/1933005/ (accessed 25.12.2017).

8. Zakaria F. Are America’s Best Days Behind Us? Time, March 3, 2011. Available at: https://medium.com/pito-s-blog/fareed-zakaria-are-americas-best-days-behind-us-4bbce5b2f (accessed 25.12.2017).

9. Bobbio N. Il futuro della democrazia: Una difesa delle regole del gioco. Torino, Einaudi, 1985. 314 ð.

10. Buchanan P.J. Is Liberal Democracy an Endangered Species? Available at: https://www.creators.com/read/pat-buchanan/01/17/is-liberal-democracy-an-endangered-species (accessed 12.01.2018).

11. Buchanan P.J. Democracy, Another God That Failed? The American Conservative, January 8, 2010. Available: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/2010/01/08/democracy-another-god-that-failed/ (accessed 12.01.2018)

12. Behr R. Face facts. The West That Won the Cold War no Longer Exists. The Guardian, 10.01.2018. Available at: https://yandex.ru/search/?text=Behr%20R.%20Face%20facts.%20The%20West%20That%20Won%20the%20Cold%20War%20no%20Longer%20Exists.&lr=213 (accessed 10.01.2018).

13. Nakasone I. et al. Posle “holodnoi voiny” [After the Cold]. Moscow, Progress, Yunivers, 1994. 320 p.

14. Luce E. The Siege of Western Liberalism. Financial Times, 05.05.2017. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/c7444248-3000-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a (accessed 12.01.2018).

15. Fukuyama F. Is American Democracy Strong Enough for Trump? Politico, 23.01.2017. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/is-american-democracy-strong-enough-for-trump/ (accessed 12.01.2018).

16. Hamada K. Kak Tramp ispytyvaet demokratiju [How Trump Experiences Democracy] Available at: https://inosmi.ru/politic/20170301/238798624.html (accessed 27.12.2017).

17. Rawnsley A. Democracy is More Fragile Than Many of us Realised, But don’t Believe That it is Doomed. The Gardian, 21.12.2017. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/21/democracy-is-more-fragile-than-many-of-us-realised-but-do-not-believe-that-it-is-doomed (accessed 25.12.2017).

18. Kaltenbeck F. Si l’Autriche Avait Assuméson Passé, elle se Serait Engagée dans une Autre Voie. Le Monde, 15.01.2018. Available at: http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/01/15/si-l-autriche-avait-assume-son-passe-elle-se-serait-engagee-dans-une-autre-voie_5241653_3232.html (accessed 15.01.2018). 


Registered in System SCIENCE INDEX

For citation:
Gadzhiev K. Triumph and Twilights of One Great Teaching. World Eñonomy and International Relations, 2018, vol. 62, no. 8, pp. 110-119. https://doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2018-62-8-110-119



Comments (0)

No comments

Add comment







Indexed

 

 

 

 

Dear authors! Please note that in the VAK List of peer-reviewed scientific journals, in which the main scientific results of dissertations for the degree of candidate and doctor of sciences should be published for the “MEMO Journal” the following specialties are recorded:
economic sciences:
5.2.5. World Economy.
5.2.1. Economic Theory
5.2.3. Regional and Branch Economics
political sciences:
5.5.4. International Relations
5.5.1. History and Theory of Politics
5.5.2. Political Institutions, Processes, Technologies

 

Current Issue
2024, vol. 68, No. 3
Topical Themes of the Issue:
  • Bretton Woods 2.0: Towards a New Global Financial Architecture
  • Transformation of the EU Political Party System on the Eve of the 2024 European Election
  • South Asia in Regional and World Politics
Submit an Article
INVITATION FOR PUBLICATION
The Editorial Board invites authors to write analytical articles on the following topics:
  • changes in the processes of globalization in modern conditions
  • formation of the new world order
  • shifts in civilization at the stage of transition to a digital society

The editors are also interested in publishing synthesis articles / scientific reviews revealing the main trends in the development of certain regions of the world - Latin America, Africa, South Asia, etc.