Karl Loewenstein, Max Lerner, and militant democracy: an appeal to 'strong democracy'

Abstract

<p> In the 1930s Loewenstein responded to the ease with which the Nazi Party rose to power within parliamentary democracy. In America Lerner echoed Loewenstein's call for a 'militant democracy', but identified a different 'enemy within' – rogue capitalist interests. Loewenstein's response to populism was an 'authoritarian democracy', whereas Lerner wished to embrace the people in a public engagement. This paper seeks a middle path towards a conception of democracy that avoids the vicissitudes of transient majorities without yielding the ground to either transient or entrenched minorities. In its modern guise of 'neoliberalism', corporate capitalism has made inroads into the sensibilities of democrats, and needs to be confronted by a notion of 'strong democracy' expressed through the engagement of whole populations.</p>