Militant Democracy?

Few people in the West’s established democracies question democracy as a form of government in itself. Yet there is fierce disagreement over what “democracy” actually means. Is a country democratic when the majority can impose whatever political agenda it chooses? Or is democracy defined by strong, constitutionally enshrined institutions, such as the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany or the US Supreme Court, which ensure minority rights are protected as well? And what happened to the promise of liberal democracy that everyone is free in the pursuit of happiness? In the age of digital capitalism, has that promise not produced quasi-absolutist concentrations of power in the hands of a small number of tech entrepreneurs, reducing the people, the actual demos, to an easily manipulated mass of “users” and consumers?

Jill Lepore, a leading US-American historian, and Christina Morina, one of Germany’s leading historians, discuss the risks and challenges facing democracy in the United States and Germany today.

With Jill Lepore (The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, Liveright) and Christina Morina (Das amerikanische Beben – Erfahrungen und Konsequenzen für die deutsche Demokratie, Siedler)
Host: Thea Dorn