Thursday, December 12th, 11:30am EST / 4:30pm GMT / 5:30pm CET
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Is Donald Trump’s electoral success a sign of authoritarian decline in American democracy, or is it a response to the Democratic Party’s failure to deliver on its promises? Daron Acemoglu recently argued the latter, suggesting the Left has focused too narrowly on cultural recognition at the expense of material protections. This neglect of the social order’s material foundations has deepened tensions, fueling “culture wars.” Shifting focus away from these conflicts toward social protections to tackle global crises is a compelling idea—but is it feasible, and how might it be achieved?
FEATURED SPEAKERS:
Seyla Benhabib, Yale University
James D. Hunter, University of Virginia
Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies
Michael Sandel, Harvard University
The event will be moderated by Giancarlo Bosetti (Reset DOC) & Jonathan Laurence (Reset Dialogues US).
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Seyla Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University and was Director of the Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics (2002-2008). Professor Benhabib was the President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2006-07, a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin in 2009, at the NYU Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice in Spring 2012, and at the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC in Spring 2013. In 2009, she received the Ernst Bloch prize for her contributions to cultural dialogue in a global civilization and in May 2012, the Leopold Lucas Prize of the Evangelical Academy of Tubingen. She holds honorary degrees from the Humanistic University in Utrecht in 2004, the University of Valencia in November 2010, Bogazici University in May 2012, Georgetown in 2013 and University of Geneva in 2017. She received a Guggenheim grant during 2010-2011 for her work on sovereignty and international law. Professor Benhabib was awarded the Meister Eckhart Prize of the Identity Foundation and the University of Cologne in May 2014 for her contributions of contemporary thought
James Davison Hunter is the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He completed his doctorate at Rutgers University in 1981 and joined UVA in 1983. Hunter’s research examines culture, religion, knowledge, and social change, with notable works including Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (1991), The Death of Character (2000), and most recently co-authored Science and the Good (2018). His books have earned awards such as the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. As Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, Hunter oversees interdisciplinary research on cultural change and publishes The Hedgehog Review. He has advised organizations such as the White House and the National Commission on Civic Renewal and remains a prominent voice on the moral and cultural challenges of modern society.
Ivan Krastev is chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna (IWM). In 2019 he was awarded a Mercator Senior Fellowship and in 2020 both the Jean Améry Prize for European Essay Writing and the Lionel Gelber Prize for his book The Light that Failed. A Reckoning. Beyond that, he is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the global advisory board of Open Society Foundations, New York, and a member of the advisory council of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). He is also associate editor of Europe’s World and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy. From 2004 to 2006 Ivan Krastev was the executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans chaired by the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. He was the editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Edition of Foreign Policy and was a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2005-2011). He has held fellowships at St. Antony’s College (Oxford); the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars (Washington, D.C.); the Collegium Budapest; the Wissenschaftskolleg (Berlin); the Institute of Federalism at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland); and the Remarque Institute at New York University.
Michael J. Sandel is a Professor of Political Philosophy at Harvard University, recognized for his work on justice, ethics, democracy, and markets. His books, including The Tyranny of Merit, What Money Can’t Buy (2020), and Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (2010), address key moral and civic issues by connecting political philosophy to contemporary debates. Sandel’s online course Justice has reached millions globally, and his BBC series The Public Philosopher and The Global Philosopher engage diverse audiences in discussions on topics such as AI, immigration, and climate change. A Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from Oxford, he has delivered prestigious lectures, including the Reith Lectures and Tanner Lectures, and was awarded Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences in 2018. Sandel has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
==> To join the webinar, register here. <==