Examine the liberal theory of State in contemporary politics. (2022, 20 Marks)
For the liberal theory, the state is an artificial and instrumental creation: individuals holding natural rights prior to government consent to it to secure those rights, and it remains legitimate only within that trust. Born in the seventeenth-century revolt against royal absolutism, it still supplies the vocabulary of contemporary politics while its practice is strained on several fronts.
Core Premises
- Individual before state. John Locke (Second Treatise of Government, 1689) grounded authority in consent and limited it to preserving “life, liberty, and estate”; a government that breaks the trust may be resisted.
- Limited, neutral government. Separation of powers, the rule of law, entrenched liberties of conscience, speech and property, and no official ranking of ways of life; the state is a necessary evil.
- Market society. Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776) confined the sovereign to defence, justice and certain public works.
A Theory That Revises Itself
| Phase | Idea of freedom | Form of state |
|---|---|---|
| Classical (Locke, Smith) | absence of interference | night-watchman |
| Modern (T. H. Green, Leonard T. Hobhouse, John Maynard Keynes) | capacity for self-realisation | welfare state |
| Neo-liberal (Friedrich A. Hayek, Robert Nozick) | market liberty, property | minimal, rule-bound |
| Social liberal (John Rawls, Amartya Sen) | fair equality, capabilities | enabling state |
Liberal Theory in Contemporary Politics
- Still the grammar of legitimacy. Rights, accountable government, judicial review and markets define legitimacy almost everywhere; even autocracies stage elections. Francis Fukuyama‘s “end of history” (1989) named this ideological victory.
- Courts as liberal brakes. In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (20 February 2026) the US Supreme Court held 6-3 that emergency-powers legislation does not authorise tariffs, though a 10% global tariff under another statute followed within days. In India, Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India (15 February 2024) struck down electoral bonds under Article 19(1)(a).
- Illiberal democracy. Fareed Zakaria (1997) warned that elections could outlive constitutional liberalism. V-Dem’s 2026 report counts 92 autocracies to 87 democracies and only 31 liberal democracies (about 7% of humanity). Yet Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who proclaimed an “illiberal state” in 2014, saw Fidesz lose the 12 April 2026 election to Péter Magyar’s Tisza; alternation still works.
- Economic liberalism in retreat. The CHIPS and Inflation Reduction Acts (2022), the EU Chips Act (2023) and tariff wars show market liberalism being shed while constitutional government survives; the WTO Appellate Body, unstaffed since December 2019, shows the liberal global order fraying.
Limits and Critiques
- Inequality. Marxists, from Karl Marx to Ralph Miliband (The State in Capitalist Society, 1969), read the “neutral” state as guardian of property; Oxfam (2026) finds the top 1% holding 43.8% of global wealth. Hence the demand that the state regulate markets and guarantee welfare.
- Community. Michael J. Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 1982) rejects the unencumbered self: rights-talk neglects the common good, a critique nationalist populism now voices politically.
- Gender and empire. Carole Pateman (The Sexual Contract, 1988) exposes the public–private divide; Uday Singh Mehta (Liberalism and Empire, 1999) traces its colonial exclusions.
- India. B. R. Ambedkar warned (25 November 1949) that political equality amid social inequality meant “a life of contradictions”; hence Directive Principles beside Fundamental Rights. Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004) shows most citizens meeting the state as political society, bargaining for welfare rather than claiming rights.
Conclusion
The liberal state is resilient in its constitutional form and retreating in its economic form. It has outlived rivals by absorbing them (socialism into welfare liberalism, pluralism into political liberalism), and in a plural, globalised world it remains the only framework able to host diversity under common rules. Its survival turns on absorbing the demand for equality too.