Introduction

As with other political philosophies, liberalism should be seen as an umbrella term that covers a range of views, approaches and positions. Neoliberalism, for example, is clearly a form or branch of liberalism. Liberalism has evolved over a period of time. Modern liberalism, for example, would be more suspicious than its forebears of claims of the supremacy of the market. A further complication in examining liberalism is that the term can be applied in both the economic and social spheres. The two spheres are not necessarily compatible. David Cameron was both an economic and a social liberal. The austerity policies that his government followed were partly based on a classic liberal belief in a smaller state. At the same time, he was a social liberal, the introduction of gay marriage being an example of liberal social legislation. Gay marriage does not square with traditional Tory values and policies. This chapter will explore the roots and subsequent development of liberalism, which has been one of the key political ideologies of the last 300 years.

The roots of liberalism can be traced back to the late 16th or early 17th century. It became a clear philosophical school during the Age of Enlightenment. Its emergence as an intellectual tradition is associated with the writings of key figures such as Locke, Rousseau and Kant. Early liberals were opposed to the dominant political forces of feudal capitalism of the period: the established church, absolutist monarchs and the landed gentry. They were committed to an alternative group of ideas, which included freedom of religion, constitutional rule, individual property and free trade.

The influence of liberalism was extended as a result of the American and the French Revolutions. Thereafter the liberal tradition was instrumental in what Huntington (1991) refers to as the ‘three waves of democratization’. The first wave saw the election of liberal governments and the introduction of social welfare provision in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The second wave occurred after the Second World War. This period saw the establishment of democratic regimes to replace authoritarian regimes in, for example, Germany and Italy. The post-war period also saw a period of decolonisation where, for example, former colonies of the British Empire became independent nations.