ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates two sets of contested ideals of democracy liberal democracy and social democracy specifically focusing on their features, development, similarities and differences. From the early nineteenth century the first stage of liberal democracy protective democracy was devised to fit into the already existing capitalist market society. In England, liberal democracy began to emerge from the early nineteenth century, when political theorists of liberal democracy built up a set of ideas which were not static but developed gradually in relation to different political issues and historical contexts. David Held maintains that the model of protective democracy with the idea of ‘freedom from overarching political authority’ was the perfect complement to the growing market society, but it neglected that a core element of freedom derives from the actual capacity to pursue different choices and courses of action.
