Learning from Global Democratic Challenges and Innovations Mini-Conference II: The Weimar Republic as a Source of Lessons for Democracy

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Part of Mini-Conference

• Learning from Global Democratic Challenges and Innovations Mini-Conference II

Session Description

The political lessons drawn from the collapse of the Weimar Republic are often invoked to understand contemporary threats to democracy. Weimar casts a long shadow over post-war political thought. As an image of social, economic and political instability, democratic breakdown and the precursory to the rise of Nazi totalitarianism, Weimar has served as the paradigmatic historical lesson of the post-war era. It is a source of lessons and analogies to make sense of democratic retrenchment and autocratization and it underpins prevalent perspectives on how democracy may be defended.

This roundtable brings together leading scholars on the Weimar republic, democratic theory and post-war political thought to take stock of the wide variety of lessons drawn from Weimar. Participants will address questions regarding the underlying assumptions of prevalent Weimar lessons and discuss the extent to which they provide useful starting points for identifying and dealing with contemporary challenges to democracy.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Cosponsor

• Division 7: Politics and History

Chair

• Ludvig Norman Stockholm University

Presenters

• Amel F. Ahmed University of Massachusetts, Amherst

• Peter D. Breiner SUNY, University at Albany

• Clara Maier Columbia University

• Anthoula Malkopoulou Uppsala University

• Jan-Werner Mueller Princeton University

• William E. Scheuerman Indiana University, Bloomington