Liberal and Socialist Democracy: From the “Convergence or Antagonism” Dilemma to the Concept of Productive Tension

The article addresses the nature of the relationship between the liberal and the socialist concepts of democracy. The research question is whether the common framing of this issue as the “convergence or antagonism” dilemma is adequate. The relevance of the topic stems from the crisis of liberal democracy, as noted by modern political theory, and the parallel return of socialist issues to academic discourse. The study employs the comparative-historical method and conceptual analysis. The article argues that neither convergence nor antagonism adequately describes the relationship between the two traditions. The convergence thesis is refuted by the experience of “Third Way” political concepts, which revealed that rapprochement that neglects the key ideas of the socialist tradition results not in synthesis but in the absorption of one tradition by the other. The antagonism thesis is refuted by a comparative analysis showing that the key conceptual divergences regarding freedom, equality, and sovereignty do not coincide with the boundary between the two traditions but run through both of them, and that a spectrum of intermediate institutional forms is located between the “pure” poles. It is shown that the modern crisis of liberal democracy is concentrated in its relation to the economic sphere – that is, at the very point that socialist critique has historically identified as the vulnerable spot of liberal democracy. However, the accuracy of the question posed is not identical to the correctness of the proposed answers. The article proposes and justifies the concept of productive tension as an adequate characteristic of the relationship between the two traditions, as well as an analytical category for relations between political-theoretical traditions in general.