ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ambiguous status of illiberalism. It argues that though liberalism is perceived as its polar opposite, it exists in an uneasy relationship with illiberal attitudes. Liberalism tends to perceive illiberalism through the prism of populism. However, through its own troubled relationship with democracy, liberalism has on occasion developed elitist and illiberal attitudes toward public life. In its illiberal liberal form, liberalism tends to depict populist voters as its moral inferiors, people whose views need not be taken seriously. Through the pathologization of the mental state of its opponents liberals have constructed the illiberal subject. From this perspective populist voters are not only politically wrong but also suffer from a psychological deficit.
