NTA UGC/NET/SET/JRF Political Science Paper 2 - 2024, 2nd Edition, Includes 2023 Solved Papers

CHAPTER 1

Liberalism

INTRODUCTION

Liberalism is a school of thought, which stands for a society where the state will be means for the ends of an individual. Individual liberty and the idea of human rationality is the core value of liberal thought. It stands on the political principle of a constitutional government and consent-based governance. The beauty of liberal political thought is the changes and variations it has gone through with the advent of time while keeping intact the idea of individual liberty. It started with the classical liberal idea of a minimal government and moved towards the idea of modern liberalism or welfarism.

Origin of Liberalism

• Liberal thoughts originated during the seventeenth-century against the idea of absolute ...