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Hannah Arendt and the Constitution of Freedom
This week I gave a lecture at the University of São Paulo in Brazil that asked, Why Law Alone Can’t Defend Democracy—and why Only Power Can Check Power.03-30-2025
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The Digital Services Act
Roger BerkowitzFrances Haugen, the woman who blew the whistle on Facebook, has put her influence behind the European Union’s attempt to regulate social media. The European Digital Services Act passed this month seeks to “make social media far better without impinging on free speech.” The Act is an important model because it does not regulate content or take aim at offensive speech. Instead, it requires that social media companies reveal how their algorithms privilege some material over others. This new transparency will show how it is that lies and hate proliferate. And it will empower governments, corporate boards, and other public actors to hold media companies accountable for their actions. Haugen, who will be a keynote speaker at the Hannah Arendt Center Conference “Rage and Reason: Democracy Under the Tyranny of Social Media."
05-01-2022
Pашизм
Roger BerkowitzTimothy Syder inquires into the birth of a new word naming an old idea:
"The new word “рашизм” is a useful conceptualization of Putin’s worldview. Far more than Western analysts, Ukrainians have noticed the Russian tilt toward fascism in the last decade."
04-24-2022
Illiberal Ethno-National Democracy
Roger BerkowitzVictor Orbán won a resounding reelection in Hungary this month. Marine Le Pen is once again rallying the illiberal democrats of France. Recep Erdogan has solidified his rule in Turkey. And Donald Trump continues to control the Republican Party in the United States. All look to Vladimir Putin as an example of the new fascism, the nationalist and authoritarian rule of ethnically coherent nation states.
04-24-2022
The Broken World Under Social Media
Roger BerkowitzThe politician, for Arendt, is someone who speaks and acts in such a way as to reaffirm or reconstitute the political community around a common and healthy sense of what is right and wrong. The challenge of appealing to the sensuscommunis today is that all the political incentives are to split the community, to appeal to a part of the whole, a faction, or a polarized movement. Jonathan Haidt argues that the rampant polarization of our political world has been exacerbated by social media.
04-24-2022
In Transition
Roger BerkowitzMichael Kruse interviews Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present. Kruse asks Ben-Ghiat, “Is America still a full democracy?”
04-17-2022
Why Citizens Vote for Autocrats
Roger BerkowitzThomas Edsall looks at recent academic research on why citizens vote for authoritarian leaders. He finds that in a hyper-partisan environment, voters in democracies privilege the victory of their side over the maintenance of democratic norms.
04-17-2022
Populism and Ideology
Roger BerkowitzMoisés Naim writes that a new breed of autocrats “uses populism, capitalizes on polarization, and revels in post-truth politics to undermine democratic norms and amass power, preferably for life.
04-17-2022
Disempowered, Disdainful, and Distrustful
Roger BerkowitzDavid King went to fight in Ukraine in part to escape his own descent into conspiracy theories and cynicism. Alexander Clapp looks deeply into the way that King’s experience in Afghanistan led to his loss of faith in the United States cultural, military, and political elites.
04-11-2022
The Eternal Victims of Political Elites
Roger BerkowitzWhat is behind the pro-Putin sentiment on both the far right and the far left? If you get past your revulsion at those who seemingly embrace Putinism for cynical and self-interested reasons, the support for Putin has a real source in the rampant distrust and disdain for political and cultural elites. Ian Buruma explains.
04-11-2022