Liberal Democracy: from the Mass Society Broad Universalism toward the Network Society Deep Sovereignty

Abstract

The paper deals to analyze the transformation of liberal democracy from universalism to sovereignty in terms of changes in political communication that are caused by the emergence of a new form of social interaction defined as a networked society. The author examines the formation and relationship of such basic categories of humanism as sovereignty, liberalism, and democracy. He reveals the role of the media in ensuring the stability of liberal democratic regimes and shows how the dominance of the media controlled by transnational corporations or by the government leads to the universalization of the mass society and the loss of an individual’s sovereignty. The author concludes that the formation of a networked society entails a deepening of sovereignty at the individual, group, and state levels and highlights its main directions: the personalization of politics, the formation of autonomous communication clusters based on the principle of common moral values, and the glocalization of the cultural space. The article highlights the problems associated with the deployment of sovereignization processes at all of these levels.