Viktor Orbán’s coronavirus power grab Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán never lets a crisis go to waste. On 20 March, late on a Friday afternoon, he put before the Hungarian Parliament a law that would give him dictatorial powers under cover of declaring a state of emergency to fight the coronavirus. The law has been ably translated into English here. Orbán sought an expedited procedure to ram through this …
How Erving Goffman helps us understand the hidden power of Biden, Sanders, and the Democratic governors In order to defend and extend democracy in America in the time of the pandemic, the Democrats must develop a way to harness their considerable expressive powers. They must creatively present themselves and their policies in opposition to Donald J. Trump and Trumpism, including his excruciating slow and chaotic response to the …
Democracy in lockdown On 23 March 1933, the German President, Paul von Hindenburg, acting in accord with Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, and on the pretext the nation was facing a crisis after an arsonist had set a fire that had badly damaged the Reichstag, the home of the German Parliament, signed a “Presidential Decree for the Protection of People and State.” A month later, a subsequent …
Populist rulers are exploiting this crisis to the fullest One byproduct of the COVID-19 crisis is that opposition parties are finding it increasingly difficult to hold governments accountable. In Poland, Hungary, and other countries under populist rule, the authorities are exploiting this to the fullest. WARSAW – Threats to national security invariably limit domestic political disputes. Now that governments have assumed a leading role in fighting the COVID-19 …
How our patrimonial presidency endangers us all In recent years, many political scientists have sounded the alarm about the dangers posed to democracy by Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump’s disregard for the rule of law, his coddling of bigots, and his utter lack of basic decency – all these things raise red flags. But we’ve mostly disregarded one danger and it’s the one I believe is the most significant: Trump’s attack …
Gray is Beautiful, Part 3 How do we balance the agendas of progressive and moderate voters? This is the final part of a three-part post (part 1 and part 2), originally drafted as a lecture, and drawn from my published and unpublished writings over the past decade. They were prepared to be presented to Democracy Seminar participants in Gdansk, Warsaw, Budapest, and in Berlin (to a group of Turkish exiles). …
On the Social Condition and Fractured Society in Donald Trump’s America This is the second part of a three-part post (part 1 and part 3 are linked here). Originally drafted as a lecture, it is drawn from my published and unpublished writings over the past decade and was to have been presented to Democracy Seminar participants in Gdansk, Warsaw, Budapest, and Berlin (to a group of Turkish exiles there). Because of …
On the Social Condition and Fractured Society in Donald Trump’s America Between the stark blacks and whites of political and cultural conflicts, there is a gray beauty that supports promising democratic engagement. I am thinking about this, my longstanding position, as the future of “democracy in America” and many other polities around the world, is far from certain. I appreciate the beauty of the gray with an understanding …
Hungary’s return to the 19th Century in response to Covid 19 The government of Viktor Orban is using the Covid 19 pandemic to drastically weaken the position of the most vulnerable class of employees. It has temporarily suspended, as of March 19th in a paragraph hidden in an official decree, all employee protections provided by the Labor Code. The key passage declares: “The employer and the employee may …
Democracy and The Public Square Editor ’s note: This post has been adapted from an essay that appeared in the book “Der Wert Der Freiheit — The Value of Freedom” that accompanied the International Exhibition at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna under the same title (German, English). Verlag fur Moderne Kunst, Vienna, 2018 “Democracies are not going to defend themselves. It is we the citizens who have to defend …
