Dispatches

Hussein Banai (Indiana University) argues that what is underway in Washington is a revolution from within. Previous American wars, however disastrous, were waged by a state with recognizable continuity; this one is being waged by an extractive regime that is turning the state into a pariah.

Patrick Gilger (Professor at Loyola University Chicago), drawing on his particular commitments as a Catholic priest and a sociologist, describes how Democracy Seminar seeks to understand and help build communities that are united not by pre-existing commonalities but by a commitment to a common search for the common good.

Michael Weinman (Professor at Indiana University Bloomington) and Siobhan Kattago (Professor at the University of Tartu) discuss the relaunch of Democracy Seminar 3.0 and the founding of the European Democracy Institute as a space for critical reflection, debate, and transatlantic collaboration. Drawing on the intellectual legacies of Hannah Arendt and Fritz Stern, they examine contemporary authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, and the enduring relevance of thinking critically in times of crisis. Against the backdrop of shifting global power, it frames the renewed Democracy Seminar as a “third escape toward freedom”—an effort to sustain democratic imagination, accountability, and shared political responsibility.

Reflecting on the history of the Democracy Seminar, Jeffrey Goldfarb (Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology Emeritus at The New School for Social Research) traces its evolution from a semi-clandestine transnational network during the Cold War to its present role within the European Democracy Institute and the New School. The essay explores how decades of dialogue, disagreement, and collaboration shaped both the Seminar’s democratic commitments and Jeffrey Goldfarb’s own intellectual work, reaffirming the importance of critical public thought in times of democratic crisis.