Though liberalism and democracy have become intertwined in some contemporary societies, they have evolved along quite distinct paths historically. Democracy is an ancient idea, liberalism a very modern one. Greek democracy was not liberal, nor was the revolutionary democracy championed by the sans-culottes in the French Revolution. To this day, there are many avowedly democratic movements and regimes, both on the left and the right, that explicitly reject liberal values. Moreover, even in liberal democratic societies, there are important tensions between the two traditions. In this conference, we will examine the prospects for liberal democracies against the backdrop of the historical and contemporary tensions between democracy and liberalism.

Interested? More information can be found here.

Professor Helena Rosenblatt of the Graduate Center, CUNY, is a featured speaker and co-organizer of this event. It is the second in a two part collaboration with Professor Jim Miller of the New School.If you missed the first – The Many Faces of Liberalism Conference at the GC on October 2nd. We are proud to announce that the keynote conversation can be found on YouTube here.

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