History Department Hosts US Roundtable

Upper School students filled the Lindsay Room Harkness table for a discussion with fellow students and members of the History department on the topic "Can the Center Hold? Democratic Institutions Under Stress.”
The goal was to stretch beyond a current events-driven discussion to consider this question in a global context, with relevance to the US,  Poland, Hungary, Brazil, and elsewhere.

Discussion focused on such questions as the place of economic prosperity and wealth distribution in making democratic systems attractive, as they were, for instance, in the post-World War II period. Or, was the attraction of democratic systems linked, others wondered, to security? The question of migration/immigration was explored as a cause of populist nationalism in the US, eastern Europe and the UK. Finally, participants wondered about the lasting effects of erosion of liberal democratic institutions, even if the current trends, which seem to work against such institutions, should wane.

Participants also commented on the link between the rise of illiberal/authoritarian leaders and ideologies on the one hand and the destabilizing effects of mass migration, particularly when dominant cultural assumptions and identities appear to be challenged. they considered the possibility that democratic institutions often rest upon a series of agreed-upon norms, rules of the political game. Once these get called into question, the nature of the game itself begins to shift. During the discussion, the group noticed a similar trend occurring in the realm of what used to be called relevant factual information. The pool of available agreed-upon facts seems to be shrinking.   They also debated if nativist authoritarianism is a global tendency, indicating that globalist, cosmopolitan, internationalist assumptions and values face concurrent challenges in many places at once.

Overall, the discussion reflected on how and why the post-World War II "consensus" has eroded, wondering if perhaps a lapse of historical memory prevents people from remembering the end game of aggressive talk and unfettered markets.

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