Article Review: Ayer and Saad-Filho's "Democracy against Neoliberalism: Paradoxes, Limitations, Transcendence" (PDF)

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Miscellaneous, grade: A, , language: English, abstract: Democracy and liberalism advocates for the protection of human rights and individual liberties. For instance, a democratic society offers a platform for people to grow through fair participation in economic, political and social activities thus enhancing their ability to have full control of their futures (Saad-Filho, 2010). Based on the conventional model, some of the main elements of democracy include respecting the rule of law, conducting credible multiparty elections, good governance, market economy and pluralist civil society (Ayers and Saad-Filho, 2015). On the other hand, neoliberalism is associated with the rise of the Weber-Schumpeter-Dahl model, which fused political, and market-oriented tendencies thus leading to illiberal policies in relation to personal, and civil liberties, privacy rights, and collective actions, among others. As a result, Biebricher (2015) argued that neoliberalism is the cause of crises in democracy. That is, neoliberals use corrupted conventional tools of representation and public administration to push for self-interests (Ayers and Saad-Filho, 2015). In this article, Ayers and Saad-Filho explained the concept of neoliberal democracy and highlighted its paradoxes, limitations, and transcendence. Therefore, in this essay, the author review and critique the findings of Ayers and Saad-Filho.