Daniel Ziblatt

Eaton Professor of Government, Harvard University

December 6, 2023 — 4:10 PM
The Bancroft Hotel — 2680 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

Add to Google Calendar 12/06/2023 4:10 PM 12/06/2023 6:00 PM America/Los_Angeles American Democracy and the Crisis of Majority Rule

Watch lecture recording About this Lecture America’s contemporary democratic predicament is rooted in its historically incomplete democratization. Born in a pre-democratic era, the constitution’s balancing of majority rule and minority rights created still unresolved dilemmas. Placing the U.S. in comparative … Continued

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About this Lecture

America’s contemporary democratic predicament is rooted in its historically incomplete democratization. Born in a pre-democratic era, the constitution’s balancing of majority rule and minority rights created still unresolved dilemmas. Placing the U.S. in comparative perspective, this lecture offers new perspectives on what should be “beyond the reach of majorities”– and what should not– making the case for a fuller democracy as antidote to the perils of our age.

About Daniel Ziblatt

Daniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor of Government at Harvard University and director of the Transformations of Democracy group at Berlin’s WZB Social Science Center. He is the author of four books, including How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018), co-authored with Steve Levitsky,  a New York Times best-seller. The book has been translated into thirty languages. In 2017, he authored Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (Cambridge University Press), an account of the history of democracy in Europe, which won the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Woodrow Wilson Prize.  His first book was an analysis of 19th century state building, Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism (Princeton, 2006). His newest book co-authored with Steven Levitsky is entitled Tyranny of the Minority (Crown, 2023). Ziblatt grew up in northern California and received his PhD from University of California Berkeley. In 2023, he was elected member of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences.

Photo credit – Annette Hornischer

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