The pandemic and illiberal regimes

Abstract

The main theoretical objects of this illiberal critique are the values of political liberalism: human rights, justice, equality and the rule of law, its commitment to multicultur- alism and tolerance, ideas of Isaiah Berlin’s ‘negative liberty’, Karl Popper’s ‘open society’, John Rawls’ ‘overlapping consensus’, or Ronald Dworkin’s equality as the ‘sovereign virtue’. From an institutional point of view, and this will be more visible in the legal reactions to COVID-19, illiberalism challenges liberal democracy, which is not merely a limit on the public power of the majority, but also presup- poses rule of law, checks and balances, and guaranteed fundamental rights.