Undermining Democracy

The Trinity Long Room Hub, Arts and Humanities Research Institute

Tuesday, 14 June 2016 | 18:15 | Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub
Challenges to Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe Democratic values and institutions are being increasingly undermined and eroded in established and transitioning democracies across central and Eastern Europe. Providing perspectives on these serious developments in Poland, Hungary and Germany, this Forum will explore the implications for Ireland and Europe more widely and consider what measures could be taken to safeguard the rule of law and democratic principles so fundamental to the idea of Europe.
This event is part of the Trinity Long Room Hub’s ‘Behind the Headlines’ discussion series offers background analyses to current issues by experts drawing on the long-term perspectives of Arts & Humanities research. It aims to provide a forum that deepens understanding, combats simplification and polarization and thus creates space for informed and respectful public discourse. 
Speakers:
The Erosion of Constitutional Democracy
Dr Oran Doyle (School of Law) will analyse the sorts of constitutional changes that erode constitutional democracies and what can be done to protect against them, with a particular focus on Hungary.
Missing Most of the Signals: Orbán, Kaczynski and Trump - State Capture by Demonizing ‘them’!
Dr Jacqueline Hayden (Department of Political Science, School of Social Science and Philosophy) will discuss how in trying to understand why democracy is under threat in countries once regarded as leaders in the process of democratic transition in Eastern Europe we need to look deeper than the quality of democratic institutions alone and focus on psychological legacies of the transition itself as well as the relationship between national collective memory, social trust and political legitimacy.
The ‘Good Change’ in Poland’
Dr Aneta Stepien (Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, School of Languages, Literatures & Cultural Studies) will explore how ‘Law and Justice’, the ruling party in Poland, redefines the idea of democracy, using anti-EU, and increasingly anti-German, rhetoric.
Germany and the Rise of the New Right: A Second Weimar?
Professor Juergen Barkhoff (Department of Germanic Studies, School of Languages, Literatures & Cultural Studies) will reflect on how, until recently, Germany was pretty much the last country in Western and Central Europe that did not have a strong right wing, populist and xenophobic party. This was widely seen as a result of Germany courageously confronting its Nazi past. Today, within a year, the ‘Alterrnative for Germany’ has risen from obscurity to 15% and the democratic middle is eroding fast. Is this the result of Angela Merkel’s brave humanitarian gesture to open the country for refugees last summer or rather the result of underlying long-term trends? Is the Federal Republic today in danger of becoming a second Weimar?

Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub

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Undermining Democracy

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