Illiberalism as a Conceptual Prism for Studying Political and Social Conflict

The concept of illiberalism offers a new way of approaching social and political conflict, making it possible to dissociate democratic decay, erosion, or fatigue on the one hand, from challenges to liberalism on the other hand. Whereas populism focuses on the question of whether insisting on people's legitimacy against technocratic elites is a normal trend in a democracy that relies on people's sovereignty or a danger to democratic institutions, illiberalism brings liberalism into the discussion. This paper presents two examples of political and social conflict in which the concept of illiberalism proposes a new grid of interpretation: one from the international scene, namely, Russia's role in defying the liberal world order, and the other from the U.S. domestic scene, namely, Trumpism as a backlash against some forms of everyday experiences of liberalism.