Authors: Duhamel & Mény
Summary: At the beginning of this 395-words entry, the author points out the real difficulty in defining the concept of liberalism when it is not linked to a particular thinker or work, but only to a geographic area such as XIX and XX century England and France, even though the origins of this movement could be traced back as late as the XVII century. According to the author, it has been a spectacular war machine against the Old Regime and the principles it embodied. Starting with the religious question, liberals have aimed at separating the State from the Church, politics from religion, defending the free expression of secular thought. Leaving aside the religious question, liberalism has later invested political and economic issues eroding the idea of monopoly or concentration of power. However, Alexis de Tocqueville warned from the effects of the dictatorship of public opinion in democratic regimes.
The Great war censured liberalism further by allowing the state to expand its competences to the social and economic realms.