Biloshitskiy S. Liberal democracy in the 21st century: resources, challenges and prospects.

The dissertation represents the results of a complex study of the current state of implementation of the liberal democracy doctrine in the political structure of the majority of leading and developing countries (Ukraine in particular). There are analyzed the character and directions of evolution of the liberal democracy doctrine in the 21st century taking into account the available resource base and the current and expected in the future global challenges to the humanity development. The hypothesis of the research suggests that in the XXI century the countries that are oriented on implementing the liberal democracy doctrine will face up with a number of anti-liberal and anti-democratic systemic challenges that will lead to either revision of the normative foundations of liberal democracy or, which is more likely, to the modern liberal democratic societies' going beyond the existing normative frames. The factors of social development that are interpreted as challenges to modern liberal democracies include intersystem factors (state-legal, socio-economic and mentality ones) and external factors (globalistic, geopolitical and geoeconomic ones). The historical periods of establishment and development of the liberal democracy doctrine are analyzed in detail. The main factors of social development of the present and the future that may cause anti-liberal and anti-democratic transformations of the existing liberal-democratic societies are investigated. There are defined reasons of strengthening of the role of elite-in-power representatives and elitaristic institutions of civil society in the state authority system; of the state erosion and forming up parallel authority centres; of marginalization and replacement of national elites by transnational ones; of the loss of legitimacy by the modern representative institutions and democratic procedures and possible consequences of the listed phenomena for development of liberal democracy. The factors of militarization of modern societies and the increasing role of "strength-based" institutions in the political decision-making process are defined. A whole range of circumstances of socio-economic, energy and raw materials, ecological, geo-economic, demographic, civilizational and geopolitical character are considered as factors of the coming transformation of liberal democracies. The theoretic-methodological bases of the subject studied are substantiated; the directions of further scientific researches of the prospects of liberal democracy are formulated.