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The 19th century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe, South America and North America. [2] In this period, the dominant ideological opponent of classical liberalism was conservatism, but liberalism later survived major ideological challenges from new opponents, such as fascism and communism.
Later, the term was applied as a retronym, to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from social liberalism. [3] By modern standards, in the United States, the bare term liberalism often means social or progressive liberalism, but in Europe and Australia, the bare term liberalism often means classical liberalism. [4] [5]
The revolutions arose from such a wide variety of causes that it is difficult to view them as resulting from a coherent movement or set of social phenomena. Numerous changes had been taking place in European society throughout the first half of the 19th century. Both liberal reformers and radical politicians were reshaping national governments.
Most liberalism in Europe is conservative or classical whilst European social liberalism and progressivism is rooted in classical radicalism, a left-wing classical liberal idea. Liberalism in Europe is broadly divided into two groups: "social" (or "left-") and "conservative" (or "right-"). [1]
National liberal goals were the pursuit of individual and economic freedom and national sovereignty. [5] József Antall, a historian and Christian democrat who served as the first post-communist Prime Minister of Hungary, described national liberalism as "part and parcel of the emergence of the nation state" in 19th-century Europe. [6]
The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism, socialism, [10] and neoclassicism, trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment. [11]
During the 19th century in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and Latin America, the term radical came to denote a progressive liberal ideology inspired by the French Revolution. Radicalism grew prominent during the 1830s in the United Kingdom with the Chartists and in Belgium with the Revolution of 1830 , then across Europe in the 1840s ...
The Dominions of the British Empire became laboratories for liberal democracy from the mid 19th century onward. In Canada, responsible government began in the 1840s and in Australia and New Zealand, parliamentary government elected by male suffrage and secret ballot was established from the 1850s and female suffrage achieved from the 1890s.