Democracy Archives - Page 51 of 56

Democracy

On Socialism / Against Ideology

Goodbye Gray Friday, joining Democracy Seminar 2.0

March 15, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

It’s frustrating. I see this clearly. I want you to see it. But you just can’t, or is it you won’t? I know my judgment goes against the grain of the prevailing social science and popular opinion. It requires a specific understanding of ideology that comes out of bitter experience, ...

Europe & Central Asia

Democracy in Hungary?

The Orbán regime is clearly not democratic

March 5, 2019 • by Zoltán Gábor Szűcs

There is no democracy in Hungary anymore. If you have a hegemonic party that has gained a constitution-making majority in the parliament three times in a row, in increasingly rigged elections, one does not have a democracy. If the power of all major independent institutions is curtailed, or they are led ...

Democracy

Democracy in Israel/Palestine Today

Ethnic Democracy or Ethnocracy?

February 27, 2019 • by Shaul Magid and Yehuda Magid

During a roundtable debate on Israeli television in the last election cycle, the major candidates, excluding the two major parties Likud and Labor (as is the custom), offered final word after a vigorous exchange of ideas. Centrist Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) party began his ...

Democracy

Could Populism Actually Be Good for Democracy?

A wave of populist revolts has led many to lose faith in the wisdom of people power. But such eruptions are essential to the vitality of modern politics.

February 25, 2019 • by James Miller

This article was originally published in The Guardian on October 11 2018. Observers have understandable qualms about political programs that are alarmingly illiberal, yet obviously democratic, in that most citizens support them. In Poland and Hungary, democratically elected ruling parties attack Muslim migrants for undermining Christian identity. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ...

Democracy

Towards a World Wide Committee of Democratic Correspondence

Democracy Seminar 2.0

February 15, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Such a grand imagination informs the making of Democracy Seminar 2.0, the revival of an initially clandestine New School seminar of the 1980s and early 1990s that provided a place for Eastern European dissidents to reimagine their world. As was the case in the earlier seminar, we are now following ...

Democracy

Authoritarian Parasitism in Turkey and Beyond

Erdogan and the rise of strongman politics

February 6, 2019 • by Utku Balaban

What makes this phenomenon perplexing is the fact that these governments come into power in countries that are anything but similar. For instance, the United States has a long-lasting political system backed by its strong institutions and semi-holy texts such as its Constitution. Hungary reframed its entire political regime after ...

Authoritarian Parasitism in Turkey and Beyond

Feature

After the ‘American Dream’?

How Mexico Responds to U.S. Deportations

February 6, 2019 • by Guadalupe Chavez

“Fixing” the “illegal” immigration “problem” has been at the forefront of Donald Trump’s rhetoric from the first weeks he took office until today. Despite Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, undocumented persons across the U.S. are taking to the streets in protest, demanding that politicians uphold their rights, and seeking sanctuary ...

Democracy

On Media Mess and Its Alternatives

Islands of Totalitarianism and Democracy continued

February 1, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

When people meet in their differences, as equals, develop a capacity to meet and talk in the presence of each other, and develop a capacity to act together in concert, they constitute political power, an island of democracy. For Hannah Arendt, in fact, this is political power in contrast to ...

Democracy

From “Islands of Democracy” to “Islands of Totalitarianism”

Notes on my conversation with Daniel Dayan about the disturbing events in France and the United States, and beyond

January 18, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We met in our favorite Parisian workplace, La Caféothèque, and then caught up with each other elsewhere over a lunch and a dinner. We’re working on our ongoing collaborative writing project, now influenced by recent events in France and the United States. We disussed papers he is developing on a theory ...

Democracy

When Is a Lie a Lie?

Trump, Journalism, and Objectivity

January 1, 2019 • by Ian Olasov

Public Seminar is pleased to announce that Ian Olosov's essay, originally printed at Public Seminar on March 13 2017, was one of four essays to win of the American Philosophical Association 2018 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest. Congratulations Ian! It is neither fake news, nor really even new news, that the press is struggling ...

Democracy

Not from the Left, Nor from the Center – But From Below

By mobilizing at the grassroots, Democrats successfully outflanked the GOP by crafting resistance into a coherent agenda

November 20, 2018 • by Sidney Tarrow

But these were only the most visible -- and the most national -- expressions of a wave of movements. Much of the energy that produced the Democratic victories of November 2018 rose up beneath the radar of the national press. As Lara Putnam and Theda Skocpol wrote in a New Republic article ...

Not from the Left, Nor from the Center – But From Below

Democracy

The Soviet Roots of Democratic Crisis in Latvia

As the country falls under populist rule is it a change — or an old story?

November 20, 2018 • by Maija Spurina

A New York Times article by Andrew Higgins paints a troubling picture of Latvia falling under populist rule. Higgins' concern is based on the results of the recent elections that makes possible a coalition between what he calls a "pro-Russian" and anti-establishment parties. Although his summary of the election results is accurate, ...