March 28, 4:30 PM ET: Jacob Heilbrunn and Damir Marusic
America Last: The Right's Century Long Romance with Foreign Dictators
105 Lawrence Hall
On Thursday, March 28 at 4:30 PM in Lawrence Hall Room 105, Damir Marusic, Assignment Editor at the Washington Post and host of the podcast and Substack Wisdom of Crowds will interview and debate Jacob Heilbrunn on his new book, America Last (Liveright, 2024).
In America Last, Heilbrunn, a leading observer of the right, explains the long history behind Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin and Ron DeSantis’s veneration of Victor Orban. Why is today’s Republican Party, so drawn to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and the brazenly illiberal Victor Orban, who has crushed an independent judiciary and political dissent in Hungary? As Heilbrunn shows, the affection conservatives display for foreign autocrats dates to the First World War. Since that time, leading intellectuals, journalists, and politicians on the right have always been drawn to what they perceive as the impressive strength of authoritarians abroad―including Kaiser Wilhelm, Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, and Augusto Pinochet―who offered models of how to fight back against liberalism and progressivism domestically. For decades, conservatives railed against communist fellow travelers in America, but have their own delusional history of apologetics. In this fast-paced, often-droll account, Heilbrunn argues that dictator worship is a longstanding romantic impulse that fits firmly within the modern American political tradition―and shows what it means for us today.
Heilbrunn is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and editor of the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine that was founded by Irving Kristol in 1985. He began his career as an assistant editor at the magazine, where his first issue was one featuring Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History?” essay. He went on to become a senior editor at the New Republic and an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and the Weekly Standard.
The talk is part of the Governing Deep Differences project at the Center for Governance and Markets.
Register here.
March 7, 12:30 PM ET: Kevin Vallier, Bowling Green State University
All the Kingdoms of the World: Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism
Posvar 4130
The 20th century had an unusual feature: global secularizing movements. In the 19th century, those movements were confined mostly to Western Europe, but in the 20th century, they exploded, suppressing the influence of religion around the world. In some milder cases, these movements only suppressed the political expression of the great religions, such as in Turkey and India. In other cases, ferocious religious persecution was a daily occurrence, such as in the USSR and Mao's China. But today, older religious influences are taking back their political influence as these regimes have receded. And they are doing so by rejecting the doctrine of liberalism that they have seen as their oppressors. Kevin Vallier will discuss these different movements, critique them, and explain how defenders of liberal democracy can respond.
Dr. Kevin Vallier, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), specializes in political philosophy. Hailing from Fairhope, Alabama, he possesses a unique background rooted in the Georgist philosophy of public land ownership. With a PNP degree from Washington University in St. Louis and another degree in philosophy of religion at St. Louis University, Dr. Vallier completed his PhD in political philosophy at Arizona. He held a post-doctoral position at Brown University's Political Theory Project before joining BGSU. Currently, he serves as the director of BGSU's Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) program and contributes to insightful discussions on cooperation and reconciliation through his blog, Reconciled.
Register here.
March 4, 12 PM ET: Timur Kuran, Duke University
Freedoms Delayed: Political Legacies of Islamic Law in the Middle East
Alcoa Room
According to diverse indices of political performance, the Middle East is the world's least free region. Some believe that it is Islam that hinders liberalization. Others retort that Islam cannot be a factor because the region is no longer governed under Islamic law. This book by Timur Kuran, author of the influential Long Divergence, explores the lasting political effects of the Middle East's lengthy exposure to Islamic law. It identifies several channels through which Islamic institutions, both defunct and still active, have limited the expansion of basic freedoms under political regimes of all stripes: secular dictatorships, electoral democracies, monarchies legitimated through Islam, and theocracies. Kuran suggests that Islam's rich history carries within it the seeds of liberalization on many fronts; and that the Middle East has already established certain prerequisites for a liberal order. But there is no quick fix for the region's prevailing record of human freedoms.
Register here.
February 12, 12 PM ET: Aurelian Crăiuțu, Indiana University Bloomington
Two Cheers for Optimism: Liberal Democracy, Its Critics and Virtues
Alcoa Room
The crisis of liberal democracy and the question what we should do to save it would have been hardly conceivable three decades ago, when the Berlin Wall was falling, and we hailed the triumph of liberal democracy around the entire world. The mood is very different today: around the world liberal democracy is in crisis. The agents and causes of democratic decline are many. They range from antiliberal populist movements of the far-right which damage democracies internally through their dismissive attitude toward core civil and political rights, to radical movements on the far Left whose push for radical reforms and endorsement of the controversial cancel culture erode the belief in the legitimacy of key liberal norms and values such as free speech and equality under the law.
This presentation, based on a book manuscript in progress on liberal democracy that Crăiuțu is co-writing with Dan Cole and Michael McGinnis at Indiana University, explores the reasons for which liberalism is under attack and revisits the diversity and eclecticism of the liberal family, with emphasis on the relationship between liberalism and political moderation. They show that the doom industry has a long history and discuss the conceptual fluidity of liberalism and its implications for students of liberalism. They argue that by acknowledging the polysemantic nature of liberalism we can better answer its critics. After examining a few tropes in the anti-liberal literature, the presentation concludes with a few practical recommendations for defending liberal democracy and rethinking liberal governance by drawing on the ideas of Karl Popper and the Bloomington School created by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom.
January 30, 1 PM ET: Omar Sadr, University of Pittsburgh
A Political Theory of Governance of Diversity
Posvar 3911
This talk presents a political theory of governance of cultural diversity developed in Sadr's book, Negotiating Cultural Diversity. It argues that a pluralistic society should forge a balance between three key elements: individual autonomy, counter-homogenization measures, and intercultural dialogue.
Contemporary societies are increasingly facing a tremendous challenge in terms of finding social cohesion. A major challenge comes from disagreement over the issues related to social justice and other fundamental principles and ethical issues that should govern our societies. The challenge compounds when these disagreements intertwine with group and cultural identities such as race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. This leads to a conflict between individual rights such as freedom of speech, freedom to practice religion, or equal opportunity with group or community preferences. A theory of governance of diversity should not only present a solution on how to peacefully accommodate deep differences, but should also present a way out on how to adjudicate disagreement between universal values and particularistic aspirations.
January 10, 4:30 PM ET: Yascha Mounk, Johns Hopkins University
The Identity Trap
Barco Law Building 107
December 4, 1 PM ET: Liana Reyes, Purdue University
Rebel and Incumbent Law and the Durability of Post-Civil War Peace
Liana Reyes from Purdue University discussed Rebel and Incumbent Law and the Durability of Post-Civil War Peace as part of the Governing Deep Differences series.
November 29, 1:30 PM ET: Mohamad Machine-Chian, University of Pittsburgh
Iran: Stoking Divides in the Middle East
Mohamad Machine-Chian, CGM Senior Research Scholar, will discuss “Iran: Stoking Divides in the Middle East” as part of the Governing Deep Differences lecture series. This talk will analyze how Iran systematically exports terrorism through a network of organizations, rooted in the country’s ruling ideology. Addressing how Iran’s revolutionary ideology drive its support for groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen, Machine-Chian will discuss how this ideology shapes Iran’s foreign policy, fostering regional instability and global security.
September 13, 12 PM ET: Marian Zulean, University of Bucharest
Identity and Security in the Black Sea Region
Marian Zulean is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Bucharest. This year, he is a Fulbright Scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Previously, he was director of the Black Sea Area program at the University of Bucharest and served as a national security advisor to the Office of the President in Romania. The discussion was based his new co-edited volume, Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region (Roman & Littlefield, 2023), which explores the nexus between geopolitical challenges and cultural frameworks in the Black Sea region. He also discussed how the war in Ukraine affects regional dynamics. Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili moderated the discussion.
