Fabian Wendt Publishes on Classical Liberalism and the Challenge of Democratic Party Politics

Fabian Wendt, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and PPE Core Faculty member, published a chapter with the title “How (not) to Compromise: Classical Liberalism and the Challenge of Democratic Party Politics.” The chapter appeared in Karen Horn, Stefan Kolev, and Julian F. Müller (eds.): Liberal Responses to Populism (Berlin: De Gruyter).

Here is a link to the chapter and abstract: Democratic party politics requires compromises. A question that has hardly been tackled in normative political theory is how political parties ought to navigate these compromises. In this paper, I would like to explore this question from the specific perspective of classical liberal political parties. My focus will mostly be on parties in Western European countries with proportional representation and multi-party systems like Denmark, Germany, or the Netherlands, where liberal parties have often taken an active role in coalition governments.

(Photograph by Holly Belcher for Virginia Tech)