Liberal Parties

Terminology

There are two kinds of terminological variety. In the first case, liberal can have rather different meanings concerning ideological orientations or a party's position within the party system. Whereas in the European tradition liberal usually refers to parties in the middle of the political spectrum, in the North American context, liberal has a more left-wing, or social-democratic, meaning. In the second case, LPs come with many different names. Whereas in the 19th-century LP labels were more consistent with basic ideological features, after 1945, this clarity began to diminish. Basically, the term originated after the French Revolution, when the term liberal had first been used by Spanish constitutionalists around 1812. Only in the second half of the 19th century did larger parties in Britain (in the Whig tradition) and Canada call themselves the Liberal Party, whereas in France or Italy terms such as republicans or radicals were more prominent. In some countries freedom labels prevail (e.g., Free Democrats in Switzerland, and later in Germany, and Party for Freedom and Democracy in the Netherlands). Examples of democratic parties exist, for example, in Luxemburg, whereas the U.S. Democrats show a mix of liberal but also social-democratic ideology. In Denmark, the term venstre (Left) is still in current use. Some (agrarian) center parties, such as those in the Scandinavian countries, were also close to liberalism. By contrast, parties with a definitely conservative character labeling themselves liberal party must not be included in the LP family, such as the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan or the Liberal Party in Australia, which for decades has been the conservative counterpart of Labour. After 1945, and particularly during the past decades, a stronger tendency can be observed to use liberal as a party label rather at random (e.g., the right-wing populist Liberal Democrats in Russia after 1991).

History

Early liberal movements developed, between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, from the cleavage between feudal society and an autocratic state, on the one hand, and commercial economy and bourgeois property and liberty interests, on the other. Economic and personal liberties, the rule of law, and parliamentary representation were core goals in the unfolding party competition with conservative ideologies and organizations. A second “classical” period has been characterized by success in parliamentary elections, development of stronger party organization, and even governmental majorities in several countries of Europe (e.g., in Great Britain) and elsewhere in the last third of the 19th century up to World War I and until some time after. A third period of decline of LPs, after World War I and during the 1930s, saw the rise of socialist/labor parties on one side and populist/fascist forces and regimes on the other. In a fourth period, after 1945, political system values in Western liberal democracies converged with party ideology, which weakened the specific profile and function of LPs. In many countries, they could only secure a minor position in the party systems.

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