The integralist understanding of authority is anti-liberal, but it is also against modern state-absolutism and totalitarianism. This is true not only of contemporary integralists, but has been true throughout integralist history.

The first modern political party to be called "integralist" was a splinter from the Carlists founded by Ramón Nocedal. Nocedal is very emphatic that his program involves a return to a more subsidiarist, participatory kind of government, limited by natural and divine law.

Nocedal did not oppose liberal democracy because he thought it too participatory, rather because he thought it not participatory enough. He favored a corporatist society as the best way of fostering participation in the common good.

Something similar can be said about Engelbert Dollfuß's intentions for the Austrian Corporate state. Dollfuß wanted to foster participation in the common good, but he was convinced that the best way to do that was not through the factionalism of liberal parties…

… but rather through corporate representation of the different "Stände" or stations in life within the body politic.