‘POPULAR,’ often used as an equivalent, means merely that the bulk of the people approve of a particular mode of government.* ‘Liberal,’ the other assumed equivalent, implies those notions of freedom, toleration and pacific progress which lie at the roots of Western civilisation.
The words are clearly not interchangeable. A policy or a government may be popular without being liberal or democratic; there have been highly popular tyrannies; the German policy of 1914 was popular, but it was not liberal, nor was Germany a democracy.* America is a democracy, but it is not always liberal; the French Republic has at various times in its history been both liberal and democratic without being popular. Accurately employed, ‘democratic’ describes a particular method, ‘popular’ an historical fact, ‘liberal’ a quality and an ideal.
The study of history will make us chary about the loud, vague use of formulas. It will make us anxious to see catchwords in their historical relations, and will help us to realise the maleficent effect of phrases which have a fine rhetorical appeal, but very little concrete meaning.
abridged
Buchan is simplifying a little. ‘A popular government’ is a government that is approved by a large majority; but ‘popular government’ is a technical term roughly equivalent to democracy, i.e. government responsible to the people rather than a monarch or an elite. That said, Buchan’s point is well-taken: the fact that a government or policy is popular in the sense of ‘widely liked’ does not make it either democratic or liberal (or wise).
This volume of ‘Nations of Today’ was published in 1923. Much the same happened again ten years afterwards, when on March 23rd, 1933, the German Parliament voted to let Chancellor Adolf Hitler introduce any law he wished without consulting them, for four years. Clearly, having an elected Parliament does not make for a democracy — at least not in the British sense of that word.