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Many describe the overarching political trend of the Western world as one of increasing authoritarianism. Whether one observes it from the left and attempts to describe the return of conservatism and nationalism, or one observes it as a part of the nationalist and conservative wave, how the left wing attempts to wrestle all aspects of society into its progressive dystopia. Ostensibly in the middle of the two camps, the traditional centrist liberals are (generally) wary of both opposite wings closing in on them, and shaping the political discourse away from the post-Cold War liberal ideals.
Liberalism as it was known just 20 years ago is today largely a dying movement. Political parties that placed their bets on it being the ideology of the future are nowadays awkwardly backpedaling to appeal to a public that is increasingly conservative and sceptical of the promises of the 21st century. Think tanks and other institutions that invested all their credibility in advocating the abolition of various traditions are all pushed into irrelevancy.
All of the aforementioned kinds of organisations would probably have polemic views on what exactly liberalism is, but for the purpose of this article, the ideology should be narrowly understood as 1. the belief in the individual’s right to self-realisation as a goal in and of itself, 2. the rejection of collective interests, and 3. the abolition of social and cultural structures that inhibit individual pursuits. Common threads for liberal advocates are the support for global integration, the irreverence of tradition, religion, nativism, and nations (particularly European nations), and the promotion of mass migration. These elements are typically lobbied to the public in a sheen of economic and growth-oriented rationalism.
There is of course often an overlap between liberalism and other ideological nomenclature. Many conservatives are economically liberal, and most socialists are socially liberal. Nonetheless, once upon a time there flourished a distinct camp in the Western political flora that embodied liberalism as described above, save but for a few cosmetic variations. Today it is increasingly pushed closer and closer to extinction.
The cause of the liberal decline
One explanation for the retreat of liberalism is the times of unrest that the West and indeed the world finds itself in as of the 2020s. War in Europe, mass migration, economic stagnation, polarisation, and a deteriorating faith in established party politics has made the utopia where every man, woman, and other was to freely associate and move across cultural, economic, social, national, and religious borders much less appealing.
This is the most common explanation seen in mainstream political analysis. But this theory exonerates the proponents of liberalism of their own responsibility – it conveniently ascribes the failure of liberalism to outside factors, perhaps beyond their control. The villain that stands in the way of their utopia could be the right-wing populists, nationalists, fascists, Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump. Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union or the perpetual misery of Cuba or North Korea is to be blamed on American capitalist corruption. The liberal bias of the Western media that paints this picture of liberalism as unduly under assault shines through.
The decline of liberalism could more accurately be explained by its own success over the past century. The entire Western world is currently moulded on liberal ideas, with multiculturalism, eroded national sovereignty, hyper-secularism, and a populace of atomised individuals “liberated” from antiquated duties to family and fatherland. The end of the line of liberalism has arrived, so what is left for liberals in our day and age to do? All that they have to show for their voters is the ongoing Western civilisational crisis, which they in large have contributed to.
Liberalism contorts itself looking for new problems
Liberal politicians and parties have had a hard time adapting to the lack of problems demanding an obvious liberal solution. However, liberalism is no longer only an abstract idea, but essentially a number of organisations with their own self-interest. To stay competitive in the political race against conservatives and socialists, liberal parties and thinkers have had to attempt to reinvent themselves, even if it means violating their original theses.
Constantly looking for new projects to embark on, mainstream liberalism has in most European countries and in North America opened the door to anti-Western and anti-nativist ideology in the form of woke culture. The remedy to the presumed plight of “people of colour” ought to be the social engineering of foreign religious and ethnic minorities into positions of power, a surprising amount of 21st-century liberals reasoned. The supposed structural injustices preventing women’s self-realisation ought to be addressed the same way, even if the practice runs counter to the classically liberal value of meritocracy.
Perhaps liberals distanced themselves through the 2010s in all but name from their original philosophy, because it only resulted in it enabling their opponents. Conservatives, nationalists and socialists have challenged liberals in the institutions liberals themselves made significant contributions to, such as parliamentary democracy, the free media space, and free civil society. As liberal parties and advocates now are being marginalised, they abandon idealism and resort to electoral survival strategies, as ill-coordinated as they may be. For some parties, this has been more difficult than for others.
The Swedish case
For some political parties in various European countries, the very word “liberal” itself, and all the connotations it carries with it, are hard if not impossible to escape if the organisation’s marketing and name recognition has been built entirely on it.
In Sweden, the Liberals, formerly known as the People’s Party, is a perfect example of this. Historically one of the focal-points of the traditional centre-right opposition to the dominant Social Democrats, the Liberals are now on what appears to be their dying breaths – they regularly hover between two and three percent in opinion polling. The risk is overwhelming that the party fails to meet the four-percent threshold in the Swedish Parliamentary elections in 2026 and thus gets voted out of the national legislature. How does a party with a name and a legacy such as the Liberals distance itself from the ideology it was for such a long time synonymous with?
…It does a complete reverse of its policies. The party has admitted fault and walked back a number of issues, from immigration and integration to a controversial privatisation programme from the 1990s. It has received harsh criticism from within and from more left-wing oriented liberal elements in Swedish politics for its cooperation with the nationalist Sweden Democrats, which supports the current government which the Liberals are a part of. In one of the most controversial gambits of the past year, the Liberals recently started advocating that the authorities take custody of children born to gang criminals, already at the hospital. A highly authoritarian twist of the liberals’ own making.
Another curious case is the fate of the Centre Party. Once upon a time the most prolific alternative to the Social Democrats, the Centre Party has through the 2000s developed from an agrarian and rural interest movement to a trendy refuge for the urban upper class which loathes both socialism and conservatism too much to fit into the right- or left-wing block. Retaining essentially none of its historical voters, the Centre Party, by chasing limitless liberalism to a degree too delusional for the common voter, made itself into an irrelevant artefact barely clinging onto its parliamentary seats.
For individual politicians, the great anti-liberal shift of the mid-2010s has been easier to adapt to, than for parties that bet their entire brand on liberalism. For comparison, the only major centre-right party in Sweden, the Moderates, has undergone a repentance from the ultra-liberal period between 2006 and 2014, when it was led by the now very controversial Fredrik Reinfeldt. Ideologically, the Moderates have been able to fall back on a dusty legacy of conservatism that the more pure-bred liberal parties of Sweden have since long discarded. But the centre-right politics of Sweden remains hamstrung and a shadow of its former self – the current government is entirely dependent on the support of the nationalists Sweden Democrats.
The slow death of liberalism in Sweden is not unique. The situation is reflected even in vastly different types of party landscapes, such as the British Tories’ (rhetorical) backpedaling since 2024. It more closely resembles the collapse, refashioning, and increasing marginalisation of the centre-right liberals in France under Emmanuel Macron, as well as the liberal killswitch that occurred in German politics after Angela Merkel. The eviction of the Free Democratic Party from the Bundestag in 2025 is a stark reminder to the similarly-sized liberal parties of Sweden of what may happen to them.
And once liberals are shown the door out of the national parliaments, it will likely take a generation or two before the voters allow them back in – when their fingerprints all over our misgoverned civilisation have faded.