Liberal Democracy

A Reflection: On What Is Past, or Passing, or to Come Thursday afternoon I accidentally turned on to the White House ceremony awarding Presidential Medals of Freedom to, as it happened, 17 individuals. It was both a moving and a cautionary experience. Dorothy Parker once wrote a theater review in…

Chapter Two in “The Rise of China: Fresh Insights and Observations — a collection of essays”, published in 2021. Chapter 2 reprinted with permission from Paddy Ashdown Forum, ISBN-10: ‎1399905244 and ISBN-13: ‎978–1399905244. Compared to the book, there are changes to formatting to highlight certain paragraphs and texts . The…

The human experience whips up passionate opinions on so many issues that it can be frustrating to face a binary choice, as democracies often do. But binary does not have to mean ossified. The complexity can spark shifts as once-secondary issues gain importance, yielding new choices, usually also binary. …

Often, when I see points that are made supposedly from a ‘pro-liberal democracy’ viewpoint, I’m reinforced in the view that liberal democracy is not really understood by many of its supposed defenders. (Yes — this post is prompted by developments in Ukraine). Liberal democracy has an essential motor that runs…

(Based on speech given on 31st January 2020 at the National Liberal Club Chinese New Year Dinner) 10 years ago, I had the honour of sitting beside Paddy Ashdown during a dinner function. When I asked him what liberal democracy is, he answered in 3 words ‘Liberty, Fairness, Tolerance’. In…

I want to craft a thesis that examines how liberal democracy improves quality of life. Democracy acts to center the public agenda on state actions that enhance life quality — and there is a plethora of data that demonstrates the robust relationship between democracy and quality of life [1]. For…