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Category: <span>Dispatches</span>

Dispatches — 2021

Category: Dispatches

A World Wide Committee of Democratic Correspondence: A Democracy Seminar Update

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When we were considering reviving the Democracy Seminar, I recalled my 18th century history and the Committees of Correspondence formed by the Americans to communicate and coordinate their opposition to British rule of the colonies. Given the emerging, worldwide, new forms of postmodern twenty first century tyranny, I, thus, came up with a compact description of our activities: “a world wide committee of democratic correspondence.” The idea was the result …

Cuban Spring in the Summer? Elaine Acosta on the Cuban Protest

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  Stefano Palestini speaks with Cuban sociologist Elaine Acosta* about the meaning and causes of the popular uprising against the Cuban government and the ruling Communist Party of Cuba which began on 11 July 2021. Triggered by a shortage of food and medicine and the government’s response to the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic in Cuba, the protests have been described as the largest anti-government demonstrations since 1994. What caused …

Does the Biden Administration Represent a New Beginning for American Democracy?

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While the scales might be heavily “weighted in favor of disaster,” there are reasons for a certain hopefulness These remarks were presented as a lecture at the closing session of the 2021 Democracy & Diversity Graduate Summer Institute of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, New School for Social Research. The author thanks Jeff Goldfarb, Elzbieta Matynia, Lala Pop and Jack Wells for their help with this text. …

The Last Days of a Brief Military Government?

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Losing popular support and facing charges on corruption, the Bolsonaro military government increases its attacks on democracy The people and all the major media outlets start calling for the impeachment of the President. The Bolsonaro government is on the ropes, and the referee can start the count at any moment. Political leaders of a broad ideological profile, now from the left to the right, socialists and neoliberals, begin …

The Reinventing of the Liberal Mind

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For decades, I’ve learned about America by studying Poland, and used my American experience to understand Poland, and worked to contribute to sociological and political theory along the way. By studying Polish alternative theater in the 1970s, I came to appreciate the importance of constituting alternative spaces of free public life, what I later called “the politics of small things.” When I examined the culture and language of …

Thinking About The Crisis of Liberal Democracy Through a Polish Lens

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A Symposium on The End of the Liberal Mind: Poland’s New Politics, edited by Jarosław Kuisz and Karolina Wigura (Kultura Liberalna Foundation: Warsaw, 2020) Symposium Introduction by Jeffrey C. Isaac Introduction to The End of the Liberal Mind by Karolina Wigura Critical commentaries by  Szabolcs László, Six Appraisals of the Illiberal Mind Dagmar Kusá, The Hyperdemocracy of “Our People” Oana Băluță, The Resurgence of Illiberalism: Dark Times, But …

Book Introduction: Diagnosing the End of the Liberal Mind

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Intro to ‘The End of the Liberal Mind: Poland’s New Politics’ Just a few years ago, it seemed that Poland had reached the end of history. The country appeared to be a fulfillment of Francis Fukuyama’s 1990 assertion that liberal democracy was the final, ultimate form of government. How could it be that a nation showcased as the most successful example of democratic transition in East-Central Europe has …

Symposium Introduction

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The End of the Liberal Mind: Poland’s New Politics, edited by Jarosław Kuisz and Karolina Wigura (Kultura Liberalna Foundation: Warsaw, 2020) That liberal democracy as a distinctive form of governance is in crisis requires no argument here, and skeptical readers need go no further than the many essays published right here, at Democracy Seminar, to find evidence if evidence is needed. Democracy Seminar, as a platform and as …

Six Appraisals of the Illiberal Mind

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The recent history of Hungarian-Polish relations reveals two opposite processes in the troubled chronicles of democracy in Central Europe. In the 1980s, the founders of the Hungarian democratic opposition were inspired by Polish dissidents and travelled to Poland to learn the tactics of underground activism from the Solidarity movement. This grassroots transfer in the service of building up liberal democracy was contrasted in the 2010s by an inverse …

The Hyperdemocracy of “Our People”

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With alarm, we are watching the global rise in authoritarian populism, accompanied by a decline in democracy, in trust in institutions and leaders, and in rights and freedoms. In our region of Central Europe, observers are disillusioned by the failure of the poster children of the November Revolutions, Hungary and Poland, to deliver on the promises of the transition some thirty years later, and by their backsliding. In …