Liberal democracy is under threat from tech platforms, identity politics, and hostile foreign powers such as China or Russia. These forces exacerbate existing fragilities that have been exposed by repeated shocks — from the 2008 global financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the cost-of-living crisis. This paper argues that Western liberal democracies lack resilience: across the West, economic models are in disarray while social models engender cultural fragmentation and politics breeds polarisation.

At the heart of liberal democracy’s self-erosion lie three closely connected factors: first, a growing self-betrayal of Western civilisation, which is reflected in increasingly illiberal attacks on history and our cultural inheritance; second, indifference or hostility towards the West’s religious traditions, which contradicts liberal tolerance; and third, the sundering of material interests from moral principles, such as woke social justice trumping ethical enterprise, which is at the expense of both investors and society — for example the reluctance of lenders to fund projects to ensure a workable transition to cleaner energy. The ensuing atomisation of Western societies undermines attempts to confront the existential threats to liberal democracy.

To renew both the liberal promise of liberty allied to tolerance and the democratic promise of making people partners in power, liberal democracies need to build institutions and nurture relationships that balance personal freedom with social stability and a sense of personal belonging with shared agency. Self-belief and belief in the best traditions of the West are vital sources to develop more resilient economies, societies and polities.