The Meaning of Liberalism - East and West

The Meaning of Liberalism - East and West

  • Author: Suda, Zdenek; Musil, Jirí
  • Publisher: Central European University Press
  • ISBN: 9789633865019
  • Place of publication:  Budapest , Hungary
  • Year of digital publication: 1999
  • Month: August
  • Pages: 281
  • DDC: 320.51/3
  • Language: English

The Meaning of Liberalism provides a new perspective on the continuing debate about how liberalism should be defined and what it means in countries with an established parliamentary system, particularly in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.

The key question this book addresses is: will the specific experience of communism and its aftermath give birth to a new distinct current of liberal thought, or will it simply enlarge the scope of the Western liberal debate? The authors argue that liberalism cannot be reduced merely to private property and market prices, but needs a very complex set of institutions and corresponding law.

Contributors come from both sides of the former Iron Curtain and they highlight the richness and diversity of liberalism and discuss different perceptions of liberal thinking in the East and West in the post-modern world.

  • cover
  • front matter
    • title page
    • copyright page
  • Contents
  • Foreword
  • By Way of Introduction
  • The Contemporary State of Liberal Theory
    • Citizemhip and Moral Individuality
    • Liberal Values, Liberal Guilt, and the Distaste far Politics
    • Liberalism, Value, and Social Cohesion
    • The Value of Liberalism
    • Communitarianism in Practice: The Threat to Individual Rights from the Imtitutionalist Interpretation of the German Basic Law
  • Liberalism in the West
    • The Limits and the Crisis of Liberal Polities
    • Social and Cultural Problems in Contemporary Europe: On Recent Challenl{eS to Liberal Ideas
    • Two Dilemmas of Liberalism: Historical &haustion and Internal Division in a World of Globalization
    • German Difficulties with Liberalism. A Historical Outline
  • Liberalism in the East
    • The Burdens of the Past
    • Liberalism in Central Europe after 1989
    • Can Weak-State Liberalism Survive?
    • Neo-Liberalism, Post-Comniunist Transformation, and Civil Society
    • Constitutional Transformation in Post-Communist Cent:ral Europe: A Liberal Revolution?
    • Law, Tradition and Liberalism in Practice: Quo Vadis, East Cent:ral Europe?
  • Contributors
  • Name Index
  • back cover

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