关键词: 身份政治, 自由主义, 民主危机, 冷战自由主义

Abstract: Faced with the “crisis of democracy” manifested by the rise of right-wing populism in European and American societies since 2016, some Western liberal scholars have proposed an explanatory framework centered on the “double alienation of liberalism”. They attribute the crisis of liberal democracy to the “alienation” resulted from identity politics, and advocate eliminating its influence and restoring liberalism to its former state. However, a historical examination of the relationship between liberalism and identity politics reveals that identity politics did not emerge as a sudden “alienation” in the 1970s; rather, it resulted from the postwar Western left adopting the dominant liberal narrative reshaped by liberals during the Cold War. The subordination of identity politics to liberalism determines that identity politics is not the root cause of the “crisis of democracy” but a symptomatic manifestation of liberalism in crisis. Rather than seeking to “restore” liberalism, the fundamental way to change the status quo is to envision and practise a path of institutional innovation that fundamentally transcends liberalism.

Key words: identity politics, liberalism, crisis of democracy, Cold War liberalism