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

摘要： 面对2016年以来欧美社会以右翼民粹主义崛起为突出表现形式的“民主危机”，部分西方自由主义学者提出了“自由主义的二重异化”为中心的解释逻辑，将自由主义民主危机归咎于身份政治造成的“异化”，要求排除身份政治的影响，恢复自由主义的本真面貌。但考察自由主义与身份政治的关系史，身份政治并非20世纪70年代以来的突然“异变”，而是战后西方左翼屈服于冷战期间自由主义者重塑的自由主义主流叙事的结果。身份政治相对于自由主义的从属性决定其不是导致“民主危机”的原因，而是自由主义陷入危机的“病征”，改变现状的根本途径不是如何“恢复”自由主义，而是如何设想并实践一种根本上超越自由主义的制度创新道路。

关键词: 身份政治, 自由主义, 民主危机, 冷战自由主义