Liberal Constitutionalism-Between Individual and Collective Interests

Abstract

Modern democracy is not a simple and immediate realisation of an abstract idea of democracy2. After the experiences of World War Two ‘what emerged instead might best be described as a new balance of democracy and liberal principles, and constitutionalism in particular, but with both liberalism and democracy redefined in the light of the totalitarian experience of midtwentieth-century Europe’3. The model of democracy functioning in the socalled western states can be defined after F. Fukuyama as a combination of the principle of democratic accountability and participation, and the liberal principles of the rule of law * Wojciech Włoch – Assistant Professor, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland, wloch.wojciech@gmail.com. 1 The article has been prepared as part of the grant ‘Law-making delegation in representative democracy’ financed by the National Centre of Science, contest Opus 11, registration no. 2016/21/B/HS5/00197. 2 Cf. R. A. Dahl, On Democracy, New Haven-London 1998, pp. 35-43, 84-99. 3 J.-W. Müller, Contesting Democracy. Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe, New Haven-London 2011, p. 129.