Bard College Berlin Presents
Who is the people?
Reflections on popular sovereignty
Keynote by Ira Katznelson (Columbia University)
In conversation with Ewa Atanassow (Bard College Berlin)
Words of welcome and introductions by Helmut Anheier (Hertie School of Governance)
Popular sovereignty, the foundation of democratic politics, is based on the idea that legitimate authority rests with the people. Many current policy issues challenge this foundation and threaten to become crises of popular sovereignty, and of democracy itself. Current debates on Brexit and Catalonia, or the resurgence of anti-immigrant nationalism in the West, raise fundamental questions about who constitutes “the people”, when and how they should participate in collective decision-making. Within liberal democracies, what rules define civic membership? How were these established and how have they changed over time? Is it possible to distinguish between different, more or less respectable, criteria for inclusion/exclusion? How should these criteria be evaluated, and by whom?
Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University. Prior to his position at Columbia, he taught at the University of Chicago and the New School for Social Research, where he was dean of the Graduate Faculty. His most recent books are Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic for the Moderns (with Andreas Kalyvas), and When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America.
This event is co-organized by Hertie School of Governance and Bard College Berlin with generous support from the American Social Science Research Council.
Admission free
Please register at events@hertie-school.org.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Ira Katznelson - "Who is the people?" (Hertie School of Governance)
Hertie School of GovernanceWho is the people?
Reflections on popular sovereignty
Keynote by Ira Katznelson (Columbia University)
In conversation with Ewa Atanassow (Bard College Berlin)
Words of welcome and introductions by Helmut Anheier (Hertie School of Governance)
Popular sovereignty, the foundation of democratic politics, is based on the idea that legitimate authority rests with the people. Many current policy issues challenge this foundation and threaten to become crises of popular sovereignty, and of democracy itself. Current debates on Brexit and Catalonia, or the resurgence of anti-immigrant nationalism in the West, raise fundamental questions about who constitutes “the people”, when and how they should participate in collective decision-making. Within liberal democracies, what rules define civic membership? How were these established and how have they changed over time? Is it possible to distinguish between different, more or less respectable, criteria for inclusion/exclusion? How should these criteria be evaluated, and by whom?
Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University. Prior to his position at Columbia, he taught at the University of Chicago and the New School for Social Research, where he was dean of the Graduate Faculty. His most recent books are Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic for the Moderns (with Andreas Kalyvas), and When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America.
This event is co-organized by Hertie School of Governance and Bard College Berlin with generous support from the American Social Science Research Council.
Admission free
Please register at events@hertie-school.org.
Contact information: i.stelea@berlin.bard.edu
Location: Hertie School of Governance