Re-Shaping of Liberal Democratic Values and Principles in Political Debates: A Normative Response

Worldwide, liberal democratic politics is facing severe challenges. They are manifested, for example, in the decline of trust in experts (Harsin, 2018), democratic institutions (Cosentino, 2020), and news media (Haapala & Roch, 2025; Michailidou & Trenz, 2021). In Western democracies these are also becoming widespread and normalised. The ongoing “epistemic crisis”, not only caused by social media platforms, but stemming from a more general distrust of Western media and political institutions (Cosentino, 2020, p. 8) nurtures a climate of distrust favouring, in particular, the populist discourse. These discourses are re-shaping our understandings of the principles and values of democracy and spread through several different contexts globally. Against this background, this paper contributes to the normative debate on political discourse from the perspective of the active (re-)shaping of democratic values and practices. It begins with the assumption that democracy is a normative idea constantly shaped by and through political practice (Dunn, Skinner). While the trend seems towards erosion of democracy, at the same time, there is a chance for empowerment of democratic institutions, as the concept of democracy is constantly re-shaped. This paper argues that the normative re-shaping of democracy is related to several rhetorical mechanisms happening at the same time, including how the liberal democratic principles and values have been ideologised in political debates, and thus, opening them up for re-interpretations by several political actors, sometimes working inside the liberal institutions.