Liberal Policy Making

Any serious political party aspiring to win seats in decision making bodies and to govern responsibly needs a plan, a policy, a programme of reform. Liberal parties, believing in reason as the foundation of political action, are likely to have elaborate views on a broad spectrum of political issues. A liberal party needs a plan for the economy, for taxation and for allowing free entrepreneurship. A liberal party will have a plan for elevating the mind and levelling the playing field through education and culture, by making sure basic as well as higher education is accessible and the cultural sector is left free to express itself. A liberal party concerns itself with ensuring a broad provision of social services and health care. A serious liberal party also concerns itself with the questions of ensuring equal opportunities for women and men, of sustainability in order to ensure equal opportunities also for future generations and last but not least, the details of how the above services are funded.

Herein, we gather ideas from liberal parties within very different contexts. The liberal party Vente Venezuela operates in a context of state collapse and severe repression, mustering thousands of freedom lovers for political change. Afek Tounes was part of the unity government after Tunisia’s transition to democracy and now holds seats on all levels as an opposition party and a force for good governance. The Ukrainian liberal party Syla Lyudey is sprung out of civil society movements and governs and holds seats in many municipalities in Ukraine, also away from the larger cities where liberalism tends to be more en vogue. Lastly, the Liberalerna party of Sweden has been in and out of coalition governments in Sweden since the country’s inception of democracy in the 1920s.

To the best of our ability, we have both tried to provide a comparative policy overview and to include interesting case studies from each country.

The reports:
 Liberal Environment Policy / Liberal Gender Equality / Liberal Tax Reform