Is it legit­imate to restrict political freedoms – such as freedom of speech or the right to build political parties and to run for elections – in order to protect national security and to defend liberal democracy against its enemies? This is of course one of the classic contro­versies of political theory and practice, as Ralf Fücks analyzes.

Liberal democracy is under pressure worldwide. At our conference “Rethinking Liber­alism, Renewing Democracy” on 24 November in Berlin and online, we discussed with inter­na­tional guests from academia, politics, think tanks and business how liber­alism and liberal democracy must evolve in order to sustain. 

The paper ‘From status quo to status reform: Accountable Gover­nance in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova’ argues that greater priority should be attached to the rule of law and democ­ratic governance...

Tradi­tional opposition parties and movements has long seized to be a polit­i­cally meaningful force in Belarus. It is time for Western decision-makers to finally admit this unpleasant reality and shift its...

The elections on April 8, 2018 gave Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party another two-thirds majority in parliament. Attila Juhasz explains why this does not imply a broad support for the concept of ‘illib­erale democracy’. The hungarian...

The anti-liberal revolt ist not limited to the US and Europe. Tendencies towards an ‘illiberal democracy’ and ethnic nation­alism can be observed in Israel as well. The Israeli author Dahlia...

There can be no liberal modernity without social justice, which is why nothing can surpass the social democ­ratic idea, which has been margin­alized in the current SPD. Anyone, who is...

The rapid pace of moderni­sation renders people suscep­tible to populism. In cosmopolitan milieus, this came as a surprise. Yet the warning signs had long been apparent.