Showing results by author "Yascha Mounk" in All Categories

Over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minorities has transformed into an obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology - which Yascha Mounk terms the 'identity synthesis' - seeks to put each citizen's matrix of identities at the heart of social, cultural and political life. This, he argues, is The Identity Trap. Mounk traces the intellectual origin of these ideas. He tells the story of how they were able to win tremendous power over the past decade.

The world is in turmoil. From India to Turkey and from Poland to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power. As a result democracy itself may now be at risk. Two core components of liberal democracy - individual rights and the popular will - are at war with each other. As the role of money in politics soared and important issues were taken out of public contestation, a system of "rights without democracy" took hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people. But in practice they create a system of "democracy without rights." 

It’s easy to be pessimistic about the fate of democracy in multi-ethnic societies. At the end of the Second World War, fewer than one in 25 people living in the UK were born abroad; now it is one in seven. The history of humankind is a story of us versus them, and the project of diverse democracies is a relatively new one—it is, in other words, a great experiment. How do identity groups with different ideologies and beliefs live together? Is it possible to embark on a democracy with shared values if our values are at odds?

Algumas democracias são altamente homogêneas; outras são marcadas por uma hierarquia racial ou religiosa brutal—e nunca se viu uma democracia ao mesmo tempo diversa e igualitária, que trata membros de diferentes grupos étnico-raciais ou religiosos de forma justa. No entanto, atingir esse objetivo o quanto antes é fundamental para o sucesso da democracia em vários países do mundo. Para Yascha Mounk, este é o grande experimento de nosso tempo.

Der Politikwissenschaftler und ZEIT-Herausgeber Yascha Mounk geht dem Ursprung der neuen Ideen über Identität und soziale Gerechtigkeit nach – und erklärt, warum sie ihre hehren Ziele nicht erreichen werden. Über weite Strecken der Geschichte wurden Menschen aufgrund ihrer Ethnie, ihrer Religion oder ihres Geschlechts gewaltsam unterdrückt. Mitglieder dieser Gruppen setzten schließlich auf gegenseitige Solidarität und ein eigenes Identitätsbewusstsein, um diesen Ungerechtigkeiten zu trotzen.

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Europe’s political climate is more hostile to Jews now than at any time in recent memory. Rising anti-Semitism among Europe’s Muslims, especially in the wake of the war in Gaza, is one reason for this change. But to claim that the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism is the main culprit - as the German journalist Jochen Bittner did this week in The New York Times - is to overlook the role played by the European majority.

The Tea Party and its European cousins have emerged from the enduring inability of democratic governments to satisfy their citizens' needs. Today’s populist movements won’t subside until the legitimate grievances driving them have been addressed.