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human
Why is the norm in continental political philosophy anti-liberalism?

I think I should clarify here that I am not trying to ask for continental liberals or trying to say continental philosophy is bunkum or anything, I am trying to understand the historical and intellectual reasons for why continental political philosophy seems to have a dearth of liberal philosophers. Certainly, I can only think of Jaspers and Gadamer (a conservative sort, with his prejudices and fusion of horizons and whatnot) as BIG continental thinkers from the 20th century who were notably liberals, as well as a bunch of people such as John Christman, Habermas and his followers who occupy a liminal space between analytic and continental phil. Contrast this with Anglo-American analytic philosophy where liberal egalitarianism, classical liberalism and libertarianism are all very popular positions. Where are the David Gauthiers, the Carol Hays, the Will Kymlickas and Jan Narvesons of continental phil?

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I though about a few reasons why continental political philosophy might be more anti-liberal in orientation than analytic political phil, and none of them were really satisfactory.

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1. A discrete legislating agent not influenced by external influences: One of the caricatures of continental philosophy is that it pays more attention to culture and socialization. Sure, let's take that to be true. A lot of thinkers do criticize the liberal subject for this assumption...but this doesn't seem destructive. After all, the liberal-communitarian debate took place in analytic phil, and people like Walzer, Kymlicka and Raz all provide for a liberalism that treats culture and the social context within which identities are formed as central to their liberalisms. Other's like Kukathas even try to ground an older classical liberalism in this post-communitarian context. Surely this can't be it.
2. Anti-humanism: Liberalism seems synonymous with humanism. A lot of continental political thought, once again, is definitely anti-humanist and "post-humanist". But, once again, this doesn't seem destructive. One can disagree with the liberal conception of the subject while still defending a liberal democratic state (Louis Rougier seems a good example, who defended a liberal state on purely pragmatic and conventionalist grounds. Fascinatingly, he was a mid-century analytic in continental France.) Anyways, it isn't clear that liberalism necessarily is restricted to the human either. Kymlicka and Donaldson extend liberal rights theory to the community of non-human species in Zoopolis by providing them varying degrees of participation in a liberal democratic state. Surely there would be some defending liberalism in this context?
3. History: Ok, this might initially seem to be a fair reason. After all, Marx, the post-structuralists, the critical theorists. All big influences. But to that I say...so what? Were Spinoza and Kant not liberals? Was Hegel particularly socialist? Do many continental political philosophers seriously endorse Nietzsche's anti-egalitarian aristocratic philosophy these days? Are theorists of the political borrowing from Schmitt Nazis? If Heidegger can be reinterpreted in the favour of left-wing politics, why can't any of these historical sources be read in favour of liberalism? A lot of these people have notions of autonomy implicit in their theories, to the point Nietzsche talks about human beings who "gives *themselves* ***laws"*** in the Gay Science. Foucault adopts an understanding of Kant that reinterprets the universal law of humanity as a critical tool to find socially necessary ethical principles. Why can't the same be done to liberal ends?
4. Politics: This is the most unconvincing argument. Sure, the Anglo-American academy has availed of a much longer tradition of stable liberal democracy, but at this point we are 75 years from the end of WW2 in Western Europe, and 52 years from the end of 68. The Long 68 itself has been over for three decades now. At the very least procedural liberal democracy is the fact of Western European states. There has been an upsurge of the right-wing recently, but it isn't like the AfD has some significant threat of coming to power in Germany. How long does the "continent" need to be liberal democratic in fact before it diffuses into the academy? Surely, ideological controls would be imposed by hegemonic liberalism (even neoliberalism, perhaps) on the content of what the academy teaches as well, no?
5. Critical attitude: Is...continental philosophy the sole claimant to the notion of critique? There seems to be a robust tradition of social, political and economic critique these days in analytic philosophy. Concepts such as epistemic injustice sure as hell not exclusive to continental epistemology. Kwame Anthony Appiah is certainly not a second-rate analytic thinker.
6. Anti-capitalism: This just shifts the question. Why is continental philosophy so specifically anti-capitalist?

Even if any of these criticisms were valid, it's not like they have been destructive in the analytic tradition for liberalism. There have been responses, counter-responses, an entire ongoing discussion. But continental political philosophers when engaging with liberalism seem to primarily 1) argue against liberalism as conceptualized by thinkers such as Locke, Constant etc, 2) neoliberalism, or 3) the early group of post-Rawlsian philosophers who revitalized political philosophy in the Anglo-American world. Where are the continental respondents and defenders of liberalism?

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I might, obviously, be getting one or even all of these points wrong. But it still seems to me a bit strange that liberalism is so under-represented.
gpt
Are you asking for a list of liberal continental philosophers or not? You begin by saying you aren't. Then you explicitly ask for one. And the entire post is based on the notion that there are no liberal continental philosophers. At one point you even say "Here are a few liberal continental philosophers, but they're not \*really\* continental."

There's some truth to your assumption (though less than you are projecting), and the answer is pretty simple. "Analytic" and 'Continental" don't really mean "US/English" and "European." They're referring to schools of thought. Continental philosophy has strong roots in Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, all strong critics of liberalism. There are also some historical reasons, like early 20th century French culture of intellectual contrarianism ("Everyone knows X is true, so we believe the opposite"). Most of the arch - anti-liberal thinkers in Continental philosophy are actually apolitical, not anti-liberal at all. And while they are persuaded by critiques of liberalism they adopt a more pragmatic approach when it comes to politics. The best example is Foucault - a fierce critic of liberalism who none-the-less worked for liberal prison reform.

There are plenty of liberal continental thinkers (you name a few yourself), just like there are plenty of anti-liberal analytic thinkers. But, given their intellectual traditions, Continental thinkers are amenable to critiques of liberalism (even when they turn out to be liberals in their political lives).