Liberal democratic societies, as patterns of political,
economic and social arrangements, would seem to be
vindicated against their detractors. Until recently Marxism in
its various forms and other proponents of single party states
and centrally planned economies appeared to offer realistic and
allegedly beneficial alternatives to liberal democracy. Events
in China, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the
Third World have so reduced the persuasiveness of these
arguments that there are no readily apparent alternatives to
liberal democratic societies.

Nevertheless, the discomfitures and embarrassments of
single party states should not be regarded as a justification for
complacency. We should be appreciative of the merits of
liberal democratic societies, but we should be aware of their
shortcomings, in light of their own ideals, and of the dangers to
which they are liable.

The purpose of the present series of books is to take
stock of and to assess, in a historical perspective, the most
central achievements and shortcomings of liberal democratic
societies, and to encourage thought on their maintenance and
improvement.

Not only do we seek to delineate some of these main
lines of historical development of the variant forms of liberal
democracy, but we also seek to discern certain fundamental
postulates that are common to these institutions and processes.
In this way, we hope to define more clearly the liberal
democratic ideal and its limits. We wish to learn where the
practice falls short of the ideal or deforms it. We wish to form
an estimate of the destructive forces within the liberal
democratic ideal itself and of their potentialities for causing its
deteriorization or its collapse. We wish above all to learn how
these destructive potentialities may be averted.

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