AIP107 Why Are Social Movements Necessary In Liberal Democracies - Research Essay Help

“Democratic quality here is in fact measured by the possibility to elaborate ideas within discursive, open and public arenas, where citizens play an active role in identifying problems, but also in elaborating possible solutions” – Donatella (2012)

There was a time when liberal democracy prevailed around the globe and had a strong foothold. There was no other alternative form of government. However, the current affairs in politics operate differently (Habets 2015). Liberal democracy can face challenges both internally and externally from challengers, including, individuals, groups and parties. Although, challenging the status quo is still difficult in a liberal democracy, these challengers can carry out social movements which can prove to be hazardous and disruptive for the normal workings of the government. The dominant groups can, in return, potentially challenge the effectiveness of the challengers in many ways. Thus, social movements like protests are important to divert the attention of the public from dominant groups (Della Porta 2013). Therefore, the focus of this paper is to discuss why social movements are necessary in liberal democracies. Before debating on as to why they are necessary, it is also crucial to discuss what exactly are social movements and liberal democracies and then link the reason of carrying out social movements to the liberal democracies.

This essay has a conceptual framework that will describe why the social movements are necessary for liberal democracy. It can be seen in the following figure:

Liberal democracy has certain distinguishable features that are significant in the functioning of the democratic government. Liberal democracy encourages civil liberty and fundamental human rights. It ensures that the will of the people through elections and the respect for civil authorities in a society is maintained. In addition, liberal democracy provides the room for the opposition in order to limit the powerful party (Habets 2015). The limited form of government is accountable to the people and their elected representatives. Liberal democracy endorses electoral democracy for fair elections in a country. In a research paper, Mukand and Rodrik (2015) provided the classification of political regimes and discussed the settings under which liberal democracy is politically sustainable. He states that the liberal democracy can be distinguished from the electoral democracy in the way that “the electoral government cannot discriminate against specific individuals or groups when it administers justice, protects basic rights such as freedom of assembly and free speech, provides for collective security, or distributes economic and social benefits”. 

According to Björgvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren (2012), the term democracy defines the extent of democratization of society. By this, they mean that the essentials of democracy include the welfare of the state and its citizens against the rules of powerful groups. This encouraged and promote the option of social movements and protests to retaliate the powerful groups’ actions and policies. In most of the times, social movements act as the protest against the autocracy and marginalisation/inequality, in the context of gender, ethnicity or any other discourse (Garada 2018). 

Social movements are usually issue-based protests by individuals in an attempt to take their voice out on the streets to be heard by the state and dominant influential groups (Burcher 2017). “Social movements are, among other things, expressions of political participation. Because they seek inclusion, they sometimes seek to influence institutions of interest intermediation” (Silva 2015). Since the 19th century, social movements have been pertaining to its role in shaping politics. Forthwith, social movements have been playing an influential role in challenging big- question in the 2000s (Yildirim 2015).