Civic Education in a Democratic Society

Scepticism regarding liberalism and democracy has arisen because the traditional concept of liberty has been unequal to countering the threats to it. These threats include the ubiquity of Weberian rationalisation, which undermines value formation; the institutionalisation of the self (traced in the works of Foucault), which undermines autonomy; and, most recently, the quest for identity (ethnic, religious, national, sexual) in the face of which liberty can often be seen as subordinate. This chapter suggests that drawing on the tradition of classical republican liberty is helpful since this emphasises that liberty can only flourish in the absence of domination, whether individual or structural.