One common definition of “liberalism” in theory and practice refers to a priority of individual freedom over other values or freedoms as its decisive feature. The systematic and historic relation between individualism and state power in liberal theories goes against this assumption, as does the function of individual rights in liberal constitutionalism. There is no need to deny the importance of individual self-determination for contemporary liberalism. Still, its relation to collective self-determination is better understood in equal or open terms as “co-original” (Habermas 1992) than as part of a normative hierarchy.

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