A spectre of crisis is haunting Europe. Indeed it's a sinister spectre. Noone exactly knows what is it, where it came from and where is it about to lead us? The only thing that we all shall acknowledge is that it exists, haunts and is a reason of all the (temporary) shortcomings elevated to a sacramental "austerity". Therefore, it seems that a decent discussion on the current problems demenads some destillation. The first debate of this year conference aimed at an analysis of the political aspects of what has been termed as the European crisis.
Why and how to democratise liberalism? - that was the initial question asked by the panel's moderator Wojciech Przybylski, editor-in-chief of Res Publica Nowa.
Samuel Abraham was the first to deal with the topic. According to him, there's a problem with a definition of liberalism as long any strict attempt to describe this ideology "would deny its aim". He criticised the Central European liberals for the economic narrowing of liberalism. He prefers Rorty's view that liberalism should be based on "the ability to put yoursef in the shoes of those who suffer". This enables liberals to find the right balance between political equality and economic inequality that forms a basis of the liberal-democratic regime. Thus the main question is to transform the instutional solidarity into a personal one. Pessimistically, he reckons that there is no alternative to the current ceremonial democracy.
Also Szabolcs Pogonyi started his speech with a few remarks on terminology. This provided him with a distinction between liberalism as a worldview and political liberalism. As he claimed - the political liberalism is in fact some sort of disillusioned conservative liberalism which accepts that no general agreement on basic values is possible within a diverse society. Thus, speaking of the European dimension, he would rather avoid some "nation-building repetition" on the Continental level because it would lead to some form of "fortress Europe".
The problem of the people's participation in the European decision-making was also tackled by Uwe Imre Serdült who stated that the current European project's fuel, i.e. anti-war unification is currently fading away along with the generation's common memory. Therefore new pro-integration incentives should be invented. Uwe Imre Serdült suggested democratic participation. As he said, the early parliamentarian era rensentment that uneducated masses need enlightened elites to gover the country is "a false of the dominant discourse". "Nowadays masses are much more educated" - he claimed. Therefore they should be given the real authority.
Finally, Nina Witoszek-Fitzpatrick argued that the most important aspect of the current crisis is actually the crisis of the open society in Europe. This is followed by a retribalisation. Nevertheless, Europe is not a lonely island and is also contantly affected either by democratisation crisis in the Middle East and the ecological problems. Nina Witoszek-Fitzpatrick remains more sceptical than Naomi Klein on the civil society's capacity to deal with such problems. In her latest book "Civil society in the age of monitoring democracy" she came up with a reinterpretetion of Montesquieu's concept of the balance of powers. According to her research in the 21st century we should balance four factors. These are: governance, economy, civil society and the media. All of them should communictae in the spirit of consensus and compromise. She also warned against giving favours to any of the four powers. "Even the civil society is not faultless. Too much of civil society leads to populism".
Nina Witoszek-Fitzpatrick's enthusiasm raised a few questions. Is such a "Scandinavian" model really possible to implement without a generous natural resources? Her research show that it's possible. What is more important than the Norwegian oil is the set of a few common basic values of the public life. In her analysis "the Norwegian regime of goodness" is based on three pillars. First of all, democratic institutions and their integrity. Secondly, high social trust. This means a trust between people and towards the state. Finally, the inteligent governance based on compromise and consensus.
Ziemowit Jóźwik
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