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1 Populism, education and challenges to liberal order
The crisis of democracy
In the early 1990s, when leaders and opinion makers in liberal democratic societies were euphoric at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism in the old Soviet Union, fears about the future of liberal democracy might have seemed absurd (Fukuyama 1989; 1992). At that point in time, its intellectual pre-eminence seemed unassailable and the educational institutions of the advanced democracies of the West were confidently expected to reflect and promote those values, not only internally but also as part of a process of creating a cosmopolitan, global society. In the closing years of the second decade of the twenty-first century things seem very different. Liberal democracy is being challenged geopolitically by the rise of illiberal states such as China and internally by the growth of populism.
President Trump’s election, the vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union and the rise of governments in Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Poland which are seen as increasingly illiberal have led many commentators to argue that liberal democracy is under threat. Some, like Paul Ginsborg, have argued that it is in crisis (Ginsborg 2008). The title of Ginsborg’s book, Democracy: Crisis and Renewal, offers hope as well as warning, but the road to renewal is not clear and may well involve painful self-reflection and a willingness to make significant readjustments.
Populism is sometimes linked in the minds of its critics with authoritarianism, and following the election of President Trump a number of commentators have raised the spectre of the emergence of an authoritarian regime in the United States. Some, including the Yale philosopher Jason Stanley and former American Secretary of State Madeline Albright, have even gone as far as arguing that the Trump administration is paving the way for the emergence of fascism in the United States (Stanley 2018; Albright 2018), and have expressed their fears in very strong terms. In response to the rhetorical question of why she thinks it relevant to discuss fascism so long after the defeat of the Fascist regimes in 1945, Albright writes that ‘[o]ne reason, frankly, is Donald Trump. If we think of fascism as a wound from the past that had almost healed, putting Trump in the White House was like ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab’ (Albright 2018: 4–5). That a distinguished figure like Albright would make such a claim in language as colourful as this is an indication of the heightened rhetoric that accompanies much of the debate. Seeing the underlying arguments as part of a very long intellectual tradition helps to put such claims in a broader perspective.
It is sometimes argued that the rise of authoritarianism as a serious challenge to liberal democracy is apparent in the economic growth of China and the increasingly successful alternative model it appears to offer to liberal democratic societies (Runciman 2013: 318–23). The enthusiasm in many Western Universities for collaboration with institutions in China, based in part on a belief in the role of higher education in building a more cosmopolitan world (as well as more pragmatic economic considerations), has increasingly had to come to terms with confident Chinese academics and politicians whose blend of Confucianism and Marxism reflects a very different view of the nature of education and of its role in society (Yang 2010; Liu 2012). But this is an alternative to liberal democracy which does not present the same kind of threat as populism, not least because the philosophical foundations of the Chinese education system are so different to those of the West. Consequently, I will not discuss this aspect of authoritarianism in the book.
There is, though, a quite different problem posed by increasing authoritarianism in countries such as Russia and Turkey. Both these countries have experienced a measure of democracy since the end of the Cold War and both share some Western values. Turkey has many links with Western society and still has ambitions to join the European Union. Turkish and Russian institutions and individual academics participate widely in educational projects with European partners, including schemes such as Erasmus. Russia, since the fall of Communism, has discarded Marxist-Leninism and increasingly argued that, unlike what it sees as a decadent, secularised West, it is defending Christian values and Christian civilisation. With their emphasis on the people, on the need for moral regeneration and strong, charismatic leaders, the governments of these countries share much in common with populism and are frequently seen as part of the same broad phenomenon.
One of the most striking aspects of the growth of populism is the way it has become particularly influential in some of the states of Eastern Europe which were once part of the Soviet Empire, particularly in Hungary and Poland. These two countries are by no means identical in their political systems or in the policies of their governments, but, as we have already seen, one of them, Hungary, provides a particularly striking example of populist opposition to liberal views of education through its antagonistic relationship with the CEU.
Historical scepticism about democracy
Challenges to democracy, whether internal or external, serve as a reminder that until recently democracy was viewed with scepticism even in what are now its strongholds of Western Europe and North America. The threats to democracy in much of the twentieth century from the challenges of fascism and communism are a potent recent reminder of these challenges, as in this context are the rise of non-democratic states such as China. In all these non-democratic regimes, the state has sought to control education and use it as a tool of social and political coercion.
If we consider that one aspect of democracy is that of empowering the mass of the people, an idea that is central to populist thought but also an important part of liberal democratic theory (although liberals may offer a somewhat different definition of ‘empowering’ and ‘the people’), the reluctance by liberal writers such as Locke to embrace democracy is not altogether surprising, even from the perspective of well-established democracies such as the contemporary United Kingdom or United States. Referring in particular to the horrors of the sixteenth century wars of religion, the savagery of the English Civil Wars and the barbarism of the Thirty Years War, James Kloppenberg stresses a factor which has implications still for how democracy is viewed by conservative and authoritarian critics.
Such abominations left a legacy of fear, suspicion and hatred; not only were people willing to die for their beliefs, they were willing to kill for them. Apprehensions provoked by democratic revolutions in Europe and North America … must be understood in the context of profound cultural anxieties concerning the balance between the desirability of empowering the people and the very real dangers of zealotry.
(Kloppenberg 2016a: 11–12)
The idea that education might be a means of overcoming this savagery is a powerful response to such fears, and helps to explain why democrats like John Stuart Mill argue that providing a well-balanced education for all children is essential to the development of a healthy democratic society. In different ways, all four of the thinkers discussed in this book believe that a properly functioning education system can help to create a society where people can live in a measure of harmony rather than a condition akin either to Hobbes’ state of nature or to the rule of his absolutist sovereign (Hobbes 1996). But their contrasting views of what education would be best, to whom it might directly apply and how it might fit into a broader understanding of society, is itself illuminating.
In order to conduct a fruitful discussion of the relationships between liberal democracy and populism and their relationship to education, it would seem reasonable to begin by trying to clarify the meaning of the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘populist’. This is not entirely straight forward, and a clear sense of the terms used is not always apparent either in academic literature or in more popular writings. Given the ways in which the concepts change over time, including, particularly in the current incarnation of populism, a very short space of a few years, this is not altogether surprising.
Robert Dahl, in his seminal A Preface to Democratic Theory, acknowledges that ‘[o]ne of the difficulties one must face at the outset is that there is no democratic theory – there are only democratic theories’ (2006: 1). The same may be said of liberalism. But at least advocates of democracy and liberalism have developed theories to be discussed. Populism is more problematic because there is no comparable body of theories which are explicitly populist, even though Rousseau’s writings offer searching discussions of some themes that have become central to much later populist thinking. In suggesting working definitions of the two terms in this chapter I will pick out some of the main ideas in each approach, but a danger is that this runs the risk of offering definitions that are either too broad or too one-sided. It is in part to address this last problem that Chapters 2 to 5 examine the work of each of the four thinkers in sufficient detail to allow a proper examination of how each understands the key ideas, or earlier precursors, and their relationship to education. Doing so is intended not only to provide detailed concrete examples of some of the most powerful versions of these theories but also to show how the use of these concepts in current debate draws on much older concepts in Western political thought. I will argue that only by examining these concepts in the context of the work of the four major thinkers it is possible to properly draw out both the ambiguity and some connecting strands in the underlying concepts.
Liberalism
Two uses of ‘liberalism’
The term ‘liberalism’ often has different connotations depending on whether it is used in Britain or America. In political debate in the United States, the term is usually used to describe people who believe in the need for a strong state to provide welfare and other benefits to the population. It refers broadly to ideas associated with the Progressive Movement in the United States in the first part of the twentieth century, identified particularly with the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, and the writings of Pragmatists such as John Dewey – the ideas which Kloppenberg, as we noted earlier (p. 3), believed had such a profound influence on the thinking of President Obama – and which in turn influenced the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the classical British liberalism of Locke and Mill, by contrast, there is greater fear of the dangers posed by the state, a concern also apparent in earlier American liberals such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. This earlier version of liberalism does not necessarily preclude state intervention in some aspects of welfare. Mill was highly critical of the economic inequalities of his own day and thought that government had a duty to correct some of them, but concern about an overbearing state is a constant theme in Mill’s work as it is in classical liberalism generally. In what follows, I will begin by sketching out some of the key themes in liberalism as defended by Locke and Mill, though during the course of the book it will become clearer that there are differences between them and that liberalism itself is far from a homogeneous body of thought. In a theory which prizes debate and critical analysis so highly it would be surprising if it were otherwise.
The moral primacy of the individual
The most fundamental principle of liberalism is that of the moral primacy of the individual. In Locke’s case, as in much twentieth and twenty-first century liberalism, this is partly expressed through a theory of human (or, in Locke’s phrase ‘natural’) rights. These are rights which are not granted by the state but are part of human nature – in Locke’s version they are given by God (Locke 1988: Second Treatise, Chapter II, Sections 4–6, 269–71). This is not to deny that there are significant differences between Locke’s concept of natural rights and twenty-first century concepts of human rights, including disagreement over what count as rights and differing accounts of how rights might be justified.1 What they do have in common is the belief that people have a moral right to be respected as individuals and that states have an obligation to treat them accordingly.
Because liberals stress the freedom of the individual they seek limits on the power of the state. In Locke’s version this is justified in terms of a social contract. Under the terms of the contract, people living in a state of nature give up some freedoms in return for the security which a government can provide, but the scope of government power is limited by its obligation to respect and uphold the rights of its citizens (Locke 1988: Second Treatise, Chapter VII, Sections 89–93, 325–8). Many more recent liberal writers also use variations of social contract theory, from Kant to John Rawls (though both refer to a hypothetical, rather than a historical, contract) and it remains an influential strand in liberal theory. Mill does not base his liberalism on social contract theory but also argues that there should be strict limits on the way in which the state may legitimately restrict the freedom of the individual.
The rule of law
Liberalism is thereby opposed both to absolutism and to arbitrary government. One of the most important ways of restricting the power of government is through the impartial rule of law. In a law-governed society, attempts at arbitrary government can be resisted by appeals to the law and an independent judiciary. But both Locke and Mill are aware of the dangers of extra-legal activities on the part of the government. Locke, writing in the midst of the political upheavals of late Restoration England, argues that if a government becomes tyrannical, to use his term, those who are oppressed have a right to rebel and overthrow the tyrant, by force of arms if necessary (Locke 1988: Second Treatise, Chapter XVIII, Section 209, 404–5). Mill, living in the more settled political society of Victorian England, is more concerned with a different kind of tyranny – the threat to individual liberty posed by an intolerant majority of the population (Mill CW, XVIII: 218–23).
One consequence of the liberal desire to restrict the power of government is that both Locke and Mill are opposed to a state funded education system with the power to determine what education all children should receive. The problem is particularly acute for Mill because of his belief in the importance of universal education, as will be discussed in Chapter 5. His concern is that such a system could very easily become a means of indoctrination and would create a society in which everyone would be taught to think in the same way and critical thinking would be discouraged.
The development of liberal ideas
Another important element in liberalism is a belief in the progressive elaboration and unfolding of liberal values. Two examples may be used to illustrate this: the development of liberalism to the point where it comes to reject ideas of racial inferiority and its gradual recognition – strongly supported by Mill – of the equality of women and men. This does not necessarily mean that liberals believe that there are no universal moral truths. Locke is very clear that there are – an argument which he bases on his belief that there is a moral law given by God (Locke 1988: Second Treatise, Chapter II, Section 6, 270–1). Mill’s position also seems to imply that there are universal principles such as the principle of liberty, though Isaiah Berlin argues in ‘John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life’ that, at least implicitly, Mill is committed to the view that there is no single set of moral principles to which we can unproblematically apply (Berlin 1969b).
Liberals recognise the importance of education in helping to explore and articulate the new insights and draw practical implications for education policy. Two of these are particularly relevant to our discussion. The first is that students of all ages should be provided with the critical skills to judge the emerging values and play a part in discussing, criticising, defending and, where appropriate, applying them. The second is the liberal belief in the particular role of universities as places where there are the resources, in terms of such assets as teachers, libraries and seminar rooms, to creatively focus on these ideas. Alfred North Whitehead once remarked that universities might have a role analo...
