[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm the editor of the journal of democracy, and it's my very great pleasure to welcome you to this afternoon's event. one big question has really been preto occupying analysts of democracy over the past several years; namely, why is liberal

democracy -- after making extraordinary advances during the last quarter of the 20th century -- entered a period of seeming decline while authoritarianism, by contrast, has been experiencing an unexpected resurgence? in january of 2015, journal of democracy focused its 25th anniversary issue on the question of whether democracy was, in fact, in decline. and most of our contributors even at that early date argued in the affirmative. and in the following four issues of the journal, we published a series of essays on the authoritarian resurgence which were later gathered into a book entitled "authoritarianism goes global." when these articles were first published, they were considered quite controversial and even excessively alarmist. three short years later, however, it's come to be widely agreed that liberal democracy

is, indeed, in peril. that's largely because it now seems to be under assault not only from other part os -- parts of the world, but also in the west itself. today it's no longer unthinkable that liberal democracy could become deconsolidated, to use a term introduced by one of our speakers today. and even a road in countries where it has been most deeply entrenched. my feeling is that a we still don't have a really good grasp of why things have changed so suddenly. the most common label used to describe the current threat is populism. scholars, of course, disagree about what exactly that term means, but it's generally agreed to combine support for the democratic principle of majority rule with hostility to the limits that liberalism places on the power of the majority.

so the populist upsurge has prompted new attention to the relationship between the liberal and the democratic components of liberal democracy. these kinds of very fundamental questions are at the heart of two compelling articles, one by bill galston and one my yasha monk featured in the forthcoming april 28th issue of the journal of democracy. official publication of this issue is still about two weeks away, but you can find advanced copies of both articles on the jod web site which is www.journalofdemocracy.org. these two articles are grouped together on the cover of the april issue under the heading "populism, liberalism, democracy." but they had separate origins. each of the authors has been working on a book about these

matters for publication this spring. ing with monk's the people v. democracy: why our freedom is in danger and how to save it, was published by harvard university press on march 5th, and galston's anti pluralism, the populist threat to liberal democracy, was published by yale university press on march 20th. so both these books, like the articles drawn from them, are still hot off the press. and at the conclusion of this event, copies of both books will be available for sale in the back of the room. here are the two books, bill galston's anti pluralism and yasha monk's, the people v. democracy. it's perhaps worth noting that our two speakers today were both trained in political theory. so it's not surprising that their efforts to address the

current problems we face rest on a conceptual analysis of the nature of liberal democracy. but each of them is also a well-known participant in policy debates and a prolific writer of op-eds and articles. they're both wonderfully clear and accessible writers which makes them a pleasure to edit. william a. galston is a senior fellow at the brookings institution where he holds the ezra wrg chair, a former adviser to president clinton and to several presidential candidates. he's also a weekly columnist for "the wall street journal." he's the author of eight books and more than a hundred harms in the -- articles in the fields of political theory, public policy and american politics. last year he delivered the seymour martin lecture on democracy in the world, and his current essay is an edited version of the talk he gave then. monk a is a lecturer at harvard

university's political department and a senior fell at new america's political reform program. two widely-discussed journal of democracy articles on democratic deconsolidation, and he's published numerous articles in leading newspapers and magazines both in the united states and in europe. now, at the outset today we're going to give each of our authors 15 minutes to highlight some of the key elements of his article and his book. and when both have finished their presentations, i'll engage them in discussion for another 20 minutes or so which should leave us ample time for questions from the floor. but we really do need to end promptly at 1:45 as each of our speakers has a plane to catch going off to plug his book in a distant city. [laughter] so those of you on twitter can follow this presentation and contribute to the conversation

by using the hashtag ned events or by following the forum@think democracy and the endowment@nedemocracy. now please join me in silencing your cell phones while i turn the floor over to yasha monk. >> thank you. so what i was -- when i was i growing up, my parents who grew up in southwest poland would tell these political jokes around the kitchen table. and i mostly didn't understand them and couldn't really relate to them. in part a because i didn't know various sort of obscure political figures that they were referencing in poland of the '60s and '70, and part because i didn't quite relate to the sense of political powerlessness. but i've been thinking of some of those jokes over the last couple of years and a particular one which i want to shower which is relatively straightforward. a man walks home late at night from his job in factory, and once he's nearly at home, he

sees a man off to the left visibly completely drunk throwing up over the gutter. and as soon as possible he sees him, he puts his hand on his shoulder and says i completely agree with your political analysis, comrade. [laughter] you can see why i might have been feeling like that for the last few years. we really are at a moment, as mark has laid out, of quite fundamental transition. when i grew up, and i think that's true of many people in this room, we assumed, we knew that democracy was embattled in many parts of the world, in parts offed world which were not affluent, where democracy did not have a long history. we knew that there were some regimes that were pretty dogged that meeting continue to have real influence in the world, pernicious influence in the world for a long time to come. but we also thought there was a set of consolidated democracies, a set of countries which had changed government to free and fair elections a bunch of times

which were relatively affluent, more than about $40,000 in today's term where democracy was safe where we didn't have to worry about the future of democracy. democracy was consolidated, it was the only game in town. well, in those ails we're about to -- [inaudible] we started to challenge that idea a couple of years ago. arguing that democracy's not the only game in town. it's no longer true that most citizens roundly reject -- [inaudible] or, indeed, that there are no politicians and political movements in our political systems that reject basic norms and rules of liberal democracy and yet have low power. just to give you a couple of headlines of those findings, among older americans born in the 1930s and 1940s, over two-thirds say that it's absolutely essential to live in

a democracy. among i don't think americans born since 1980, less than one third do. twenty years ago about 1 in 16 americans said army rule was a good system of government, now it's 1 in 6. and you see similar developments in other parts of the world. there's some new data from last year which shows a real increase in the number of europeans who believe that a strong leader who doesn't have to bubble with parliament and elections is a good thing. in germany, though, 16% 20 years ago. in france it was once upon a time 25%, now it's 50%. 1 in two frenchmen and brits who long for a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with parliament and elections. there's a big debate about how to interpret that day, and i think a's some -- i think there's some reason to be skeptical. but, of course, we've also seen radical changes in the voting behavior of citizens in north

america and western europe and radical changes in the behavior of both some of the new parties that have swept onto the scene and some of the more long-established runs. in the year 2000, the average -- [inaudible] of the populist party in europe was 8%, now it's 25%. if you remember winston churchill's iron curtain speech with an iron curtain coming down from central europe all the way down to the south, you could now actually drive along that iron curtain, you can drive from the baltic sea all the way down to the aegean, even further south that churchill was talking about, and never leave a country rule ruled by populists. so it's no longer a niche phenomenon, it has actually become.coming significant in one big part of europe. and it's making huge inroads as we've seen most recently in the italian elections. so what i argue in my book is that we can only understand that

by remembering that our political system is a liberal chem democracy which has nothing to do with liberals and conservatives, it's nothing to do with barack obama versus george w. bush. it means that, first of all, our political system's supposed to grant us individual liberty. but a liberal political entity is one that respects the rule of law and individual powers and the how to worship or not worship, who to be in a relationship with and all those kinds of freedoms. the sec element is the democratic -- the second element is the democratic element. well, democracy means the rule of the people, and i think to be democratic a country at least has to translate popular views into public policies to a substantial degree. and the argument that i make in the people v. democracy is that these two parts of our political system, i think, have increasingly started to come apart. on the one side, you have the

rise of a system that i would call rights without democracy. up democratic liberalism. a political system in which the rule of law isment respected, the separation of powers is defining of the system in which individual rights are mostly adhered to. but in which the mechanism for translating popular views into public policies has become weaker and weaker over time. there's a number of reasons for that. the first being a lot of legislatures aren't terribly responsive to the people they're supposed to represent. you have a huge increase in the role of money in politics, particularly clear in the united states that also very strong in parts of europe. you have a revolving door between lobbyists and legislatorrings. you have a political class that as often lost touch with ordinary voters. and when you take all of these things together, it's not a

surprise that according to some science studies the views of average americans don't actually have much impact on what happens in congress. that bit is easy to solve in principle. it's difficult to make the change happen. it's difficult to actually reform campaign finance, but it's easy to think about what it would look like. normatively, it's straightforward. we know what a better system would look like. there's also a set of developments that are normatively more complex where it's harder to think about how to solve it. because it's not just the legislature, it's not that congress no longer transmanipulates -- transmits into public policy, it's also that lots of areas of policy have been taken out of democratic contestation altogether. you have a growing role of central banks who are increasingly independent and make more decisions, you have the rise of independent bureaucratic agencies whether it's the european commission in

the european union or whether it is things like the environmental protection agency or the consumer protection bureau in the united states, you have the rise of trade treaties in international organizations. and once you take all of those things together, a lot of decisions are taken by experts and technocrats. no, the easy solution to that is to say let's abolish all of those things, just a conspiracy to power away from the people, we don't need them. but that's not true. in order to make sure that power plants continue to be safe, you need experts to regulate them and make decisions about them. and in order to respond to big challenges like climate change, you will need to coordinate the action of hundreds of states around the world. so i'm in favor of a lot of these institutions, but i think we also have to think much more seriously about the ways in which it's difficult for us here on stage or for you in the audience to feel like we have a real say in what happens when 200 countries around the world

come together and decide whatted to do about climate change. so how do we deal with this technocratic dilemma. that's the topic of one part of the book, the people v. democracy, and this new article in the journal of democracy as well. now, in apartment of the response to this -- or in part of the response to this political system, we've had the rise of something that is, in many ways, even scarier. and it's spearheaded by populists. this is one of many things that bill galston and i have in common. we think about populism, and some people reject the term. let me take a few moments to talk about what exactly a populist is. why is it that all of these different figures are called populist whether it's the president of turkey, the prime minister of hungary, the prime minister of india, some of the political figures influential in western europe like marine le pen, even some people you might

think of closer to the united states. [laughter] why do we call them populists? well, they don't have a lot of things in common at first sight. you may have mentioned -- you may have noticed that the president of the united states doesn't appear to be overly fond of muslims. the president of turkey doesn't appear to be particularly a fan of anybody who isn't a miss muslim. there are some who want to cut down on the welfare estate and slash regulations on businesses, there are others who are left-leaning and say, no, we need to control business and expand. so they don't have that in common. what do they have in common? what they have in common is a way of thinking about politics that says the only reason why we have political problems is that political leaders are corrupt and self-serving, they don't really care about people like you, and so we can solve all the problems very simply. you just have to give me power, trust me, and i'm going to fix

everything. it is what's called a claim to the exclusive representation of the people. that i and only i stand for the people, which both means that i get to speak beforish and anybody who disagrees with me is illegitimate. what happens when figures like that get into power? well, first of all, they're not able to deliver on the promises, so they start saying things like who knew that things could be so complicated. but secondly, they start to blame because they don't want to admit that perhaps they've overpromised. and so they start to say, well, you know what's a problem? the problem is all of these independent media outlets who are terrorists cause them who are spreading fake news as some others might say. the problem is the other political parties aren't loyal to this country. they have trade deficits. the problem is that independent

institutions like the judiciary, like electoral commissions, they're enemies of the people. and so what you have is rise of a system that is in certain ways democratic in that it often speaks for a lot of the people in the country. in particular, it often passes legislation against unpopular miles per hours so that also undermines the core evidence of the call system that we need to sustain our democracy. thus, to undermine the rule of law, separation of powers. and this sunday we will see what that means in hungary. a man who was popularly elected and remains quite popular in the country is running for re-election after having turned state media into propaganda outlets, managed to force the sale of most private media

companies into the hands of his allies or forced them to register as lob to byists or foreign agents. has taken such control over the electoral commission that all of the opposition parties were fined a huge sum of money which makes it difficult for them to campaign while the ruling party was never investigated. so we will now in the heart of the european union, in a country that was considered consolidates by most political scientists five years ago have elections which are neither free, nor father. and we already know he's going to be congratulated on his resounding election victory without irony, and we know that angela merkle, the chancellor of jerk number -- angela merkel, is still tolerating it as her sister party in the european people's party and with european parliaments.

the ruling german christian democratic union is actually allied with party of -- [inaudible] so we have to ask ourselves how all of this happened. how could this come about. and i'm sure we'll have more conversation about that going forward in the next hour. but as i want to explain shortly, how to think about that. well, it's not enough to look at one country. when this thing is happening, it's so many different countries at the same time you have to ask about a what the similarities in all of these cases are. and it seems to me that there's at least three. the stagnation of living standards for many citizens in many countries or a failure to deliver on the promise on catching up with the quality of life for the rest of europe and north america. the united states, for example, the living average doubled.

since 1999, it's been flat. look, americans never thought that the sorts of people who gather in a nice building in the center of washington, d.c. are paragons of moral virtue or that they should be completely trusted. this is to say i'm doing quite as well as my or parents did, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. i've worked early hard all my life, and i don't have anything to show for it. let's try something new, how bad could things get? and sue see not necessarily that the rich vote for establishment pears, but there's a very strong jee graphic pattern. less economic investment somewhere there is a higher share of jobs that might be automated away are much more likely to vote for populists. this is true across north north america, western europe and beyond. the second important thing is a

set of cultural challenges. most democracies were founded as monoethnic and nonno cultural countries. in italy and germany and sweden in 1960, it would have seem very obvious to people who really belongs. it was something that was ethnically descendant from italian, german or swedish stock. thank any, that has started to change, people have started to accept that they can have come pate i can'ts who are blown or black, muslim or hebrew. but there's a strong rebellion against it as well, and in a way that shouldn't surprise us. because people got something out of being part of the majority group. if you weren't the most affluent guy, the most respected guy, it's easy to say, well, at least i'm italian rather than a foreign err.

well, that's being challenged. that immigrant might not be representing you in pardon mement, ask is we should celebrate that, but it shouldn't surprise us that there's resistance against it. the story in the united states is both similar and different. it's similar in that it's always been a multiethnic society with a straight racial hierarchy in which one group had bigger advantages over others. ..

when the internet allows people to make much stronger. the general democracy, very empowering parts of social media. often allows people who have wrongly been excluded from public discourse to have a real voice but it also makes it easy for people who have hateful views, people who want to spread propaganda or lies to have a real voice. coming on top of the other two elements, that's a very dangerous cocktail n. the book i say a lot about what we can actually do to stand up for our

freedoms and i'm happy to say more about that in the q&a, i don't want to take too much time. but very broadly, we need to show people that the system is responsive to them and limitingg the role of money in politics, we need to show people that we can stand for globalization and other countries around the world, but also show that it's possible to make sure that rich individuals and cooperations pay the fair share of tax, it's possible to have all of those things and promise real gains of living standards for every citizen but possible in the words of the people who wanted the yoonted kick come to leave the european union to take back control, to individuals to feel like i'm in control of my life and the nation is in control of its faith even as you preserve some of the liberal international order. the second thing is that we need

to fight for an inclusive sense of nationalism and patriotism but rather accepting exclusive nationalism all the way going to do other end, if nationalism is so dangerous, let's get rid of it entirely, i think we should proudly stand up for notion of nationalism, yes, something special about the national community f something happens to people in houston, i should solidarity to them. if something happens to people in puerto rico, they too are my patriots and should help them get over a terrifying storm. that has to be inclusiveness. germans, italians, across racial and ethnic lines. the third thing i want to say is

the response of social media, the temptation now is to sense -- and i get the temptation because many of you that i don't think have a place in public discourse. there's no institution whom i trust to determine what the views are and that's always been the best argument for free speech, stability and social media as well. so what should we do? we should fight for our values in a much more proactive way. the numbers of hours teaching civics that is plummeted. we spend a lot of time pointing flaws of system but very little time on what's good about the political system. we should be up front about those and think of our students to overcome that. we need to remind people that liberal democracy offer something very special and very unique, that it is better today

to be a citizen of the united states of germany or sweden than it is to be a citizen of russia, turkey, to venezuela. each generation of thinkers who thought about how to sustain a self-governing republic emphasized the importance of passing down our values from one generation to the next. we paid lip service to that over the past decades but we haven't taken seriously where this time in which our freedom is in danger, our democracy is at stake, high time for we start to fight for the survival of democratic institutions and the survival of political values, thanks. [applause] >> thank you, we will turn to bill galston. let me give my appreciation.

i remember at yankee stadium. i don't-- yoggie rose and thanke people who made the day necessary. [laughter] >> and if i think about the people who made this day necessary, i'm not sure that i should be thanking them but they know who they are. [laughter] >> and i also, you know, i also want to salute the journal of democracy for the extraordinary intellectual leadership that it has displayed in not only giving ample space to the discussion of these issues but as you pointed out in your introduction mark by taking the lead, even when doing so was quite controversial because you really opened up the space for the discussion of which today's panel is -- is an example. you know, yascha said so many

things which i agree completely and i could check them off my presentation. >> that's why i bribed mark to go first. >> i would also point out that yascha's book is twice as long as mine. if you're interested in value for dollar -- [laughter] >> there's only one book to buy. [laughter] >> and i'm surprised that harvard publicists hasn't made that point more explicitly. let me say briefly that we are having this discussion because along with the rise of china, the rise of populism in the west is arguably the most important political phenomena of the 21st century so far. this was a sort of a niche subject while it was slowly developing. i think it became quite topical

in europe a decade ago, but it wasn't until the brexit vote and then, of course, the 2016 presidential election that it really became a central topic of concern to many, many americans. there's a brief moment of hope last summer after, you know, emmanuel macron's magical victory, not only a personal victory but as he conjured a party out of thin air and turned to legislative majority. there was a sense that we reached a turning point, populism had peaked, the center was resurging, et cetera, that was then. since then we have seen the rise of fad in germany, right-wing populist ruling in austria's ruling coalition, two consecutive populist victories, parliamentary and presidential in the czech republic, the

astonishing turn of events in italy a few weeks ago. we have seen in recent weeks poland holocaust law and even more recently víctor urban's decision to make referendum of george soros which is being depicted of bad old days of 1930's and 1940's and we are seeing parallel with these events. the collapse of the center left throughout europe, the socialist who elected a president in 2012 got 7% in the presidential election five years later, astonishing and what i will call

the center right. many center right parties are making their peace, some of the worst elements of populism in order to try to placate voters. i think during the cold war liberal democrats got accustomed to communism as the enemy without. well, populism is the enemy within. as yascha rightly said, it offers a critique of the status quo in the name of democracy itself which makes it a particularly perplexing and elusive target because the populists except two pillars of liberal democracy. the idea of the sovereignty of people that all legitimate power flows from the people and the idea that if citizens are -- if citizens are equal at least in

their civic capacity, their votes ought to count equally and therefore there is a default setting in favor of the right of the majority to get its way, but populists are uncomfortable with two other defining elements of liberal democracy, constitutionalism assayed of entrenched of institutions and create the framework within which ordinary decision-making occurs and impatient of the antimajoritarian institutions that protect the rights of individuals, unpopular minorities and the institutions that are necessary in order to make those protections more than guaranty namely independent courts, constitutional courts.

that's from a point from a theoretical and analysis is the enemy within. there's substantive, if you will, psychological characteristics, first of all, homogenius understand of the real people. not only homoagain -- homo homogenius. a direct relationship felt emotional relationship between the people on the one hand and a charismatic leader almost always a male charismatic leader and

one could do comparison to have gender component of the rise of populism. so far yascha and i are in complete agreement. i have a somewhat -- parallel but somewhat emphasis analysis of the causes and the rise of populism but in good fashion and yascha has blazed the trail here, i will introduce three causes. the first of which is economics and here we have a very deep structural problem that all the advanced economies are wrestling with, that problem is not just the decline of traditional manufacturing, but it is the rise of the knowledge and innovation economy that has very important consequences not just for class but also for place. as the berkeley economist enrico

maretti has argued, there's a new geography of jobs because it exists in large diverse metropolitan areas where you have people highly-educated people, innovators who are bouncing ideas off each other. over the past decade, more and more of the growth and economies as a whole has become located in large diversed metropolitan areas, for the most part the interlands, small towns and rural areas have been left farther and farther behind. this is not something to read off the income distribution table but in a system of geographical representation has profound political consequences because certain places are doing well and other places are doing

badly and that's a structural fact for which is there is no remedy. that creates a split, new version of the old split between city and the country side. you can see in western europe, in the uk and in the united states, the home of populist is not in the city is in the country sides and the new economy is the reason why. second, second category of causes, government which takes two forms, one characteristic of the united states which is partisan polarization, gridlock, named capacity to act and in europe it's more like a center-left, center-right duoploy, certain issues all together n. the united states gridlock in capacity to act has

fed the rise of populism because people are looking for effective governance and they are not too particular about the means. so -- one of the things i do at brookings, interesting time in our nation's history and we -- our team put the following proposition to the american people. agree or disagree, quote, because things in the country have gone so far off track, the united states needs a leader willing to break some rules to set things right. 45% of the electorate agreed with that composition. 41% of democrats interestingly, 49% of republicans, 53% of the white-working class, 65% supporters, that system wasn't

working and needed to break it the way a chick needs to peck its way out of the shell in order the breathe is very much with us. the third thing is culture, the sense that's widespread in many corridors, a sense of cultural displacement. for quite some time that's taken the form of people who have traditional values rooted often in redij own -- religion that have sustained for long periods of time, those understandings are under assault from progressive elites. and part of the assault takes the form of law, the other takes the form of disrespect or even contempt for people who haven't gone with progressive flow of ever more inclusive and generous and kind values.

but the tip of the spear, spear was immigration. immigration was the core issue that drove the brexit vote. it was the decisive issue in putting donald trump over the top and it has dominated the rise of european populism ever since angela merkel honorable but politically disastrous decision to open germany's doors to more than a million refugees. that was the decision that helped to elevate mr. urbon to the leadership of the populist counterrevolution in europe and i could go through each one of the european populist parties and demonstrate in detail how it has been energized or reenergized by public to

immigration particularly the recent flow of immigrants and refugees from the middle east and north africa. in the 15 months proceeding the recent italian elections, 690,000 immigrants and refugees arrived in italy. you can multiply that figure by about 4 and a half to see what it means in american terms. imagine if we were wrestling with 2 and a half or 3 million refugees when we are struggling to come to agreement on how to deal with tens of thousands. we are talking about 2 orders of magnitude or more. so what do we do about all of? well, three problems and three

solutions. when it comes to economics, the most urgent task is the geographic reintegration of neglected regions into full membership in american economy and society. in 1930's, franklin roosevelt and the new deal embarked on a program of rural elect electrification. the point was in part economic but it was in part social cultural and even political. it was to connect disconnected parts of america and make them part of one society and one economy, the challenge in our

day, electricity is at the core of the 20th century economy, automation in the 21st century. will begin in rural broadband and build from there in the reconstruction of economic links between metropolitan areas on the one hand and lands on the other. in government, if in effectiveness and gridlock is the challenge, at least in the united states, well, we need institutional reforms that will at least mute the effects, polarization and restore the capacity of the government to act and we also need action on the political level to try to lower the temperature and to

create venues within which people of good will across the partisan and ideological spectrum can convene and dedemonize each other which i would be happy to talk about during question and answer period. with regard to culture, again, two recommendations, we need a new culture of respect in the united states one of my first recommendations to fellow members to vanish the phrase fly-over country from vocabulary and move out from there. people who disagree with us are sometimes disagreeable but they should never be regarded as deplorable. second, and this is tougher and i will be happy to go into

detail, the immigration issue is doing more than any other single issue to poison the tone and substance of politics in the united states and not just in the united states, we need to find a fair and honorable way of putting this controversy behind us. i'd spent ten years about this, i would be happy to talk about how in the question and answer period, as long as the issue is hanging out there, it's going to be very, very difficult to take the emotional steam out of the populist revolt. finally, i want to end on an optimistic note. liberal democracy is certainly threatened in the new democracies of post communist europe. it is certainly challenged in some of the most established

democracies. i do not believe that the threat is as yet existential in the united states and i don't expect it to become so. first of all, because our institutions, i think, are enduring a stress test and i think they are passing it and i expect them to continue passing it but second because if anything, i detect signs that public opinion is turning back in favor of liberal democracy in the united states. i belong to an outfit, bipartisan outfit called the voter study group and the most recent publication in voters' study group was coauthored by among other people, larry diamond, long associated with the national endowment for democracy and this study of recent survey results found that since just 2014 the share of

americans that say that it is very important to live in a democracy has increased from 73 to 83%. fully, 8% say that democracy is preferable to any kind of government in all circumstances and support for a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with congress and elections has fallen sharply. only a minority of those who don't think democracy is a particularly good form of government are willing to endorse authoritarian government, are there problems, yes. i think that americans are a long way from losing principles even though the faith has been soarly tried in the past two decades, thank you very much. [applause] >> well, thanks to both of you for really excellent

presentations and before opening to the floor i thought we might take a few minutes and try to encourage a discussion among the two of you. in looking through two books i have to say that i found very little daylight between you on most of the major issues that you discussed and so i want to give either of you an opportunity if you have some disagreement and the other has said i will have a few specific, nothing that comes to your mind. [laughter] >> i think we do mostly agree. i would say the challenge that bill has said about immigration is broad enough. i believe that immigration as political issue has a lot to do

with sense of loss of control and i think it's important to distinguish between the extent which we need to make people feel like this is a controlled process, that's a result of democratic decisions that have taken and people's views are respected. more people feel that the border is secured but more people feel that they can have -- they can express opinions on immigration without being beyond the political pail as a result. the more they are actually going to be willing to accept, reasonably open-hearted policies. certainly when you ask a question like whether more diversity is a good thing for your country, most european societies actually say no to that. most americans say yes to that. not just diversity, more

diversity. it's a good thing for the country. it's not true that most americans are racist and most americans are excite supremacists or anything like that like some people on the farther left want to claim. that's not true, we have a pretty deep consensus about the fact that an american can be brown or black or can have any number of religions but to defend the consensus, i think, and that's largely an area of -- we need to make it easier to have an open debate about immigration in which we recognize that it's okay to have different options about that. i might disagree with some patriots about that, i might have -- i might process this immigration than some of my fellow citizens, but that's okay. we should be allowed to have that as the normal part of political debate without anybody

being targeted, i do think this is reacting or this is part of much more challenging but certainly outside of north america, practically no democracies that have been founded and it's historically unique experiment to try to transform the conception to multiethnic one and we have to succeed because ultimately the principles of liberal democracy which have to include equal respect to our citizens irrespective of ethnic and tremendous resistance and goes beyond immigration, goes beyond the question of how many people have come on immigrants in the last couple of days and couple of years. in germany, for example, the refugee crisis which bill

mentioned is certainly one of the reasons why the alternative for germany is now the third biggest party in the country, second biggest in some of the polls, but the party was very close to coming into parliament in the previous elections, before the rise of the refugee crisis, very nasty book by a fellow, essentially argued that turkish immigrants have more offspring than quote, unquote, real germans and less intelligent. germany is becoming dumber all of the time. it was the best-selling nonfiction book before the start of the refugee crisis. i would say it's a change of emphasis that the challenging is multiethnic society, both one that we cannot sidestep and longer standing that worries about spikes of immigration that we see in european countries.

>> you want to respond? >> well, this is such a deep and interesting issue. the more i think about it, but to take the framework for just a minute, historically, stage multiethnic empires, not republics, whether you look at rome or the hapsberg empire, the model was very much the same. the authority of the empire provided framework, container, if you will, in which different ethnicities, different nationalities, different religions could enjoy a measure of autonomy in peace and security and we all know what happened in europe when the --

when this imperial was chattered. we are still seeing in the middle east. the death of the atoman empire has not been integrated and i will not go back so far as rome. i would say that -- once again, this is a difference of emphasis, two things, first of all, in italy, the league got 4% of the vote in 2013. it got 18% of the vote in the most recent italian election after it turned away of the idea of succession, unification with the north, i don't know, maybe under the emperor. [laughter] >> once it turned away from that and focused on antiimmigrant

rhetoric, it soared, it soared past, it's gains were more than twice the gains of the 5-star movement and if there's a center right coalition governing italy, the league will lead it in all probability. and the afd in germany when it shifted from being a sort of a liberal party to a more ethically immigrant party became super charged and i don't think we would be having this conversation were it not for the events of 2015 and the reaction to it. i grant that's not when it started but that's when it reached real liftoff. so that's one point. a second point is that this is not mission impossible. i went to toronto in 2015 to --

not in 2015, this january to deliver the lecture for the second time and i was struck by the fact that as i studied candidates, one to have very big differences between candidates in the united states is that in past 20 years, the canadians have moved from a situation in which their immigration system was much less popular than it was in the united states to a situation which is much more popular in the united states, public support for canadian immigration which stood at one-third of the populist in 1995 is now about two-thirds. why did that happen? well, because they found a way, a structure for their immigration system that seemed to go -- that seemed to fit with the flow of canadian economics and canadian culture that did not require reducing the number

of immigrants. as a matter of fact, the flow of immigrants is three times the flow of pace than the united states but it did mean giving much more emphasis to the potential economic contribution of immigrants and much less weight than we do to family reunification, nobody else in the world awards two-thirds of its immigrant slots each year on the basis of family ties and that has generated an enormous amount of economic and social tension in the united states. we can do better, we don't have to become liberal, nativist, xenophobes, we just have to get in the 21st century. the law that we are under was enacted in very different times. >> we are slowly inching to disagreement. >> we are taking our time. [laughter] >> let me start with one point

of agreement but then i have two actual points of disagreement. i agree with you about the special way in which multiethnic societies have hardened societies, it's very important. i mentioned all of the empires that you mentioned, roman empire, i want to read a brief passage on the point that it is easy for emperor to go generous in granting citizenship. citizenship does not confer any power. it's much more difficult -- >> subjectship. >> to be generous in rules to membership, after all in the system allows people to rule anybody who gains the status of citizen get it was a say as all come -- patriots. some kind of link between

democracy and notion of citizenship ought to put the question in terms, does the idea of self-governing make it more difficult to live along side as equals, that's a very serious question and i tried to answer in the book, yes, it does make it more difficult in such ways, it is possible, we can build a multiethnic society that we are proud of. we do have to set out the rules of that in the way that can gain broad agreement and i agree with you that prioritizing high-skilled immigration is a good way of i think to it especially in western europe where so much immigration has deliberately been nonhigh skilled. the idea of what it is to be an immigrant, somebody with low skill, less educational advantage and so on. bringing in a ton of high school people to countries like germany and sweden will help transform

people's image of what an immigrant is and canada has done a good job of that. now, either canada has done a good job as bill has or immigration isn't as central to the populist reaction as he claims because i too have been to toronto recently, in fact, last week, it's one place where i don't get a particular question, wherever i talk about this book i get a question which says, but under some countries that really immune to populism, what about canada. i didn't get the question in canada, you know why? do you remember rob ford, the mayor of toronto, interesting figure, became well known for home video in which he was smoking crack? >> felt right at home. [laughter] >> well, his brother duck ford is leader of conservative party in on or or -- ontorio and in a

country that has the canadian favoring immigration, populists can still gain majorities. that's point number one. point number two, you know, we can talk about particular examples, i mentioned germany and you mentioned italy league, there is no clear turning point. not a clear turning point in 2008 as some people want to say, this is all about the economic crisis, you don't see that in the data or some people want to say it's all about the refugee crisis, you don't see that in the data either. it's actually once you look at different countries and sort of average them, it's a surprisingly smooth line, populism has been rising in a steady way for a long time and that's depth to challenge.

>> well, i don't think that we need to continue this colloquy on immigration any longer. i think you have -- you have seen both the very broad area of agreement and around the margins, some areas of disagreement. i have, you know, i have a somewhat different analysis of european developments over the past 3 years but i grant that the impact of immigration has been particularly profound in some european countries and it has left populism untouched in others. i think that the examples of germany and hungary and italy are powerful but no doubt if you take a look at the front nacional and average in other countries, those affects may

disappear in the total, we can argue about whether that's exactly the right way to look at this but i think that we've reached the point of diminishing returns on that point now. >> sounds like disappointingly we mostly agree to agree. >> well, i'm so sorry. [laughter] >> and to the people who are watching this on c-span, if you came for a food fight, you came to the wrong program. >> related issues is even greater, both are written in defense of a civic or inclusive nationalism recently which is clearly connected with the questions of ethnicity and immigration and i think there's something striking about the fact that two authors coming from different background and so on do find so much to agree upon even if it makes for a less

fiery exchange. let's open it up. i will start with carl and then next from there. please identify yourself. >> thanks to both of you, i want to just -- i think there's a difference that i just want to point out maybe if you can talk about it. this was also true last january in 2017 when the two of you appeared on a panel, you were more optimistic bill and today your statistics are more optimistic, you are talking about the negative statistics, you're talking about the positive statistics, the second thing is that in trying to understand american pluralism and what holds us together. we talk mostly about immigration here as -- this kind of right-wing attack upon pluralism, but there's also a left-wing attack on pluralism which is identity politics and you both are different generations, bill, you have seen the rise of identity politics in

the united states going back to 1960's which really undermined the whole idea that there was an americanism that united us and i think that very likely, your thoughts on this how that might have contributed to the reaction against, against the left in the united states and maybe yascha, somebody who was younger and didn't grow up from the 60's and also didn't grow up as an american and how you might see that, a reflection of that in europe? >> well, i will be happy to extend my optimistic remarks in two respects. first of all, let me drop a footnote to a journal of democracy article that was published at roughly the same time that yascha and i started flooding your pages and as i recall the founding was -- the

finding was that even in the interwar period, no established democracy fell from within. i think i'm remembering this correctly. >> might have been established before -- >> exactly. it was the newer democracies, you know, of course the poster child, you could extend that, so it seems to me that if i had to make a very rough quantitative judgment of the intensity pressure of liberal democracy now and in the interwar period, i would have to say it was greater on the ideological front and factor political front in the interwar period, that historical baseline gives me confidence. now speaking as a political scientists but as an american with some knowledge of american history, this tension between

our principles on the one hand and changes in ethnicity balance of population on the other is a story that goes back before the beginning of the republic. benjamin franklin had things to say about the germans that came in pennsylvania, they stick together, they don't learn -- >> i agree with him wholeheartedly. >> they don't learn english, et cetera, et cetera. and if you look at previous spikes of immigration in the united states, the irish in the 1840's, the chinese when they were imported to build railroads right after the civil war, the flood of central and southern europeans that reached our shores between 1880 and 1920,

each one of those generated cultural tensions and antiimmigrant ire that it took both statesmanship and time to solve. finally, responding in agreement to the thrust of your question about identity politics. yascha and i were agreeing emphatically about the historical fact that ethnic diversity is typically been housed peacefully in empires and not republics and the united states is a great experiment to the contrary. what substitute for imperial authority in the united states, is the american creed, the basket of principles and the institutions that the principles have spawn. if we don't have that in common, we don't have the framework within which these different ethnicities and religions can live in security and safety each

under his victory and his vine with nonto make him afraid, to quote george washington's famous letter to turo synagogue and as part of -- as part of the response to the immigration problem, i think we need not just a policy response but a civic response. as i was celebrating pesack this weekend, i found myself wondering, what if america had a kind of a civic holiday of that sort. let's call it the fourth of july, you know, where we had 48 pages that we all read and discussed together, could we agree on those 48 pages right now? >> 24, 24 of my book. [laughter] >> yes. yours would only be half

expensive. we already established that. i think, yes, to the extent that we take our multiethnic history and future seriously, we have to take the framework of common rules and principles seriously, we have no choice. we have to revive them because they are not in good repair right now. >> so let me answer your two questions as well. look, i think that unfortunately there hasn't been a lot of -- not a lot of work has been done going back about people's support because we assumed everybody was agreed on that. a survey asked a million different things and there isn't solid base to go back going back decades. there's a lot more very recent research and data points are all over the place. there are some pieces of good

news, so, for example, it does seem to be the case at the moment that young americans associate the idea of strong leader with a particular person which should not be named and since the person is not popular among the young they have actually start today reject the idea of a strong ruler who doesn't have parliament elections and high numbers. also very worrying news in the new data. one of the worrying things there's used to be support of democratic was norms, bipartisan, what it should be. whether somebody said that they were on the left of the political spectrum or the right of the political spectrum was not a good predictor whether they rejected authoritarian alternatives to democracy. well, now it's becoming to become partisan with people on the right and more likely to say, perhaps we need strong leader who doesn't have to bother with congress and

elections, because rules, perhaps our system isn't working. that's very worrying. the other thing i would say there are lots of questions in which the young do seem even in data, excellent study which everybody should check out, on some counts alternatives as well. less likely to be consistent democratic. when you look at the degree of support, especially among the young, they are comfortable to venezuela, so even yes most people like democracies and it's rarely the case that a majority say let's get rid of democracy, they are still so upset with the political system, so cynical that it's going -- open not to people, it's not the colonels

marching on the streets, that's not my worry, it is people who say the system isn't working too well. of course, i'm a democrat, of course i'm in favor of democratic institutions but somebody needs to go and radically change what's happening, give me power and i will sort it out. that's how democracies go to die. i think it's quite a bit of evidence in the public opinion data that there's a lot of people who will be tempted by that including some of the people who have not yet been mobilized. when you look at other countries, there's a lot of young people who are open to alternative to democracy. i don't think there has been yet a successful pop whris candidate in the united states that has made that the main demographic they are trying to mobilize. once we get that, i'm quite worried that it's going to be pretty powerful. now, speaking to the second question, you know, i don't like much the word identity politics because so many things -- [inaudible] >> people in different sides of

the spectrum mean such a different thing by it that's it's a recipe for talking past each other. many members of ethnic and religious, to some degree sexual minorities are under acute attack and we should unapologetic and not make any footnote that they deserve support and we need to defend them. [applause] >> at the same time, i also think that there is a temptation and risk to emphasize both the real injustices in our country and the things that separate us in the way that actually makes it harder to build coalition where we see the things in which we agree and we see the things on which we want to fight together to create a better society. one way of relating that back to the american principles is that there's two sets of use, there's a set of view that says, our

american principles, are absolutely right and there's never been a problem with them. all we need to do is to keep applying them in the way we have and everything is going to be fine. i think that is naive because it underestimates the agree to which people have been enjoying those principles to which in our history or too often have been groups that have not gotten to enjoy the protection of principles in the same way so i reject the point of view. i also reject the other point of view which is to say, you know what, if the principles have always been applied select lively, a bunch of hypocrisy in how they operated in real life but perhaps the principles are all wrong, let's get rid of them. i think that is a huge mistake as well. so instead we need to recognize that, yes, we have a principles that can make multiethnic society work, we might have to fine-tune them, but the basic

principles are there. what we have to do is to fight to make sure that everybody who lives in our country gets to enjoy those principles equally. >> let's take a few questions now. on this side. right in front. then the general behind him next. >> thank you for a very interesting discussion with lots to talk about but keeping it simple. in your discussions about democracy it's often framed as liberal democracy against authoritarianism or as you frame it in the book, people against democracy and implied that it's against liberal democracy, the kind of democracy we have here, but is that really the case, when we talk about liberal democracy are we championing democracy or the constraints of liberalism, the constraints of rule of law that champion

safeguard universal rights rather than the majoritarian democracy that ultimately may laid to authoritarianism, in a sense authoritarianism is outgrowth of majority, why do we not do that, why do we not champion the constraints as something good in and of themselves particularly now that -- that telecommunications, that internet and so forth make those constraints truly a techniclogical invitation that we could do without as in our discussion about the necessity of the electoral college or as in the discussion in britain about using the popular vote for

brexit? so i will stop there. >> thank you. >> thank you for a very interesting conversation. i'm a law student at georgetown university. you think the rise of china is most significant friends the modern era and you mentioned the sort of dominance of populist parties along side the former iron curtain but neither of you really framed the discussion as in a cold war mind -- frame of mind, and i'm wondering what you think the virtues and short-comings are in that framing? i will point out with china offering alternative to liberal democracy and authoritarian model and russia's outright attacks on liberal democracy in recent years, i wonder if you can comment along those forces along with internal forces,

thank you. >> thank you, let's take one or two more, back there and then up front here. >> hi, i'm an dependent scholar. i have a question regarding rise of authoritarianism and popularism. rising power in germany 1930's, advocated practice, final solution, concentration camp, extermination, guest -- gestapo which resulted 6 million jews dead. auschwitz alone 1 million. ten times hiroshima deaths. 40 million deaths in europe. now, my question today is, this kind of thing is going to happen

in the future because of lies of authoritarianism or populism. [inaudible] >> first point is on reversing the polarization of politics, given that lately much of -- specifically u.s. the gridlock on the national level as in each party trying to push a nationalized agenda, what promise do you see in the recent -- special elections focusing on issues and secondly, about the

issue of immigration, here if you take the example of canada that, do you see much in canada they're known for only working models of immigration policy in which the goal is to -- was to oppose just bring them in as guest workers. do you think potentially a more robust approach to assimilation could alleviate some pitfalls regarding immigration? .. ..

>> because rights are in independent value and tyranny is an independent value those are the two major functions of the restraints we are all talking about the entire u.s. constitution structure driven by a dominant overriding goal everything else is gravy. we sacrifice a lot of sufficiency and unity and a lot of a lot of things in the name of preventing tyranny with legislative and judicial

so with china i decide or describe populism with the enemy within i would think it is unfair to say the enemy because in part the policy objectives a to displace us and even more important because china has its own form of soft power prosperity without liberty that is a seductive combination in some quarters of the world. leading to hitler i don't think so but the dangers that we face now are not of that order which is to say to be trivial or immoral a very

interesting question about federalism and the uses of federalism as a mechanism there is something to that intelligent conservative intellectual wrote an important book exactly to that effect to bring that to your attention that is an inherently limited strategy because there are some issues that can only be dealt with at the national level what we are debating is a classic example you can't have 50 different states with 50 different immigration laws this has always been a national issue and will continue to be with we cannot get our arms around it as a path when --dash as in

times past we will continue to have these problems. immigration and assimilation, nothing irritates native americans more than to continue those conglomerations of communities that do not speak english don't try to get confidence but we are in a different situation the first time since the mid- 18th century were a majority of immigrants pulled from a single linguistic community generating real problems most intensely dislike picking up the phone to get the automatic response press one for english or press two for spanish.

because that stands for that linguistic division which means trouble like belgium or canada. those are my four minutes. >> i do agree the importance of the controls but to have that faith to deliver democracy that is promised to do things at the same time we also get collected self determination and from one form of political change and then we have to make it work. because once the majority is willing for example, then there is no institutions that over time will save us so we

have to convince people but if we can have a system we don't have tyranny but from the government as individuals the government is no longer responsive than that is half of what the system promises so that speaks a little bit larger to what is going on so i think thankfully china is very effective country in practice which is to say in particular that institution of the communist party in charge so i think now the threat is twofold with the key divisions in our own country and make it

easy for countries like russia to have an influence on our elections, and second it is the rise which is not proletarian but as a proletarian democracy and it is much more frightening than the ideological one that is offered. >> but the comparison would you start mentioning hitler but i think there are good reasons to avoid that comparison. not just because i think on the merit it is wrong, i think that is a little silly but also because to be that sobering alarm is to have the opposite effect if you can

imagine the downfall of democracy only happening where people walk around in black boots then you look out the window to say then what are they worried about? but to study how those democracies have power, the example is very unusual and in a lots of democracies somebody said i will be more democratic. trust me i will make everything better. and that is far more scary for what might happen. so i do think the danger is very real and i don't think it

is hyperbole but but there is something happening here for the citizens of china and russia and venezuela we still have the power to fight our own battles. and i can promise but i also don't know it will be a tragic ending. a number of months ago a speaker said there is a big fire burning we only have a little glass of water in front of us. if you put the water on the fire you alone cannot do very much but a bunch of people watching and of all of us take the glass of water then together we may be able to put it out and those who do believe in the democracy and civil rights and collective syllable rule can't go try to do that.

>> thank you for concluding on an uplifting note and thank you both for your presentation. [applause] and now books will be available for say at the back of the room thank you for coming. >> i will be happy to sign them. >> we are offering to sign them as well be five. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]