#rp24 speaker Daniel Ziblatt: Tyranny of the minority

How can we succeed in protecting democracy from radical minorities that undermine, destabilise and even threaten to destroy it from the inside? Political scientist Daniel Ziblatt warns against the rise of authoritarian forces and calls for urgent democratic reform.

At re:publica, he will demonstrate how the forces that shake the foundations of our democratic principles and pave the way for authoritarian tendencies emerge, using the USA as an example. He will describe the great paradox of Western democracies, namely that inclusivity and diversity often generate exclusionary counter-movements. It becomes clear that democracy is at a crossroads and must be reformed now if it is not to degenerate into the rule of the minority. The future of democracy is at stake not only in the US elections in 2024, but also in Germany, Europe and the rest of the world, given the rise of the AfD and other right-wing populist parties.

Daniel Ziblatt is Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and has been Director of the Research Unit Transformations of Democracy at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). His research and teaching on democracy and authoritarianism, especially in Europe, have won several awards. In 2023, Ziblatt was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His co-authored book with Steven Levitsky, the New York Times bestseller ‘How Democracies Die’ (2018), has been translated into over thirty languages and was awarded the NDR Kultur Non-Fiction Prize as the best non-fiction book of the year. Their new book ‘Tyranny of the Minority. Why American Democracy reached the Breaking Point’ became a New York Times bestseller and will be published in Germany on 15 May 2024.

At #rp24, we look forward to exciting insights on the tyranny of the minority - and to Daniel's inspiring ideas on the democracy update.