Andreas Schedler (CEU Democracy Institute) hält am 27. März 2025 eine IPW-Lecture mit dem Titel Dilemmas of Democratic Vigilance.

Die Veranstaltung findet im Konferenzraum (NIG, 2. Stock) um 18:00 Uhr statt.

Organisiert von Fabio Wolkenstein und Alexander Somek

Abstract

Contemporary processes of democratic subversion are incremental and self-reinforcing. They proceed in small steps, unfolding in downward spirals in which successive authoritarian advances lay the ground for subsequent ones. Vigilant democrats must therefore confront and strive to neutralize attacks against democracy early on, while they may still be able to halt their self-reinforcing logic: Wehret den Anfängen(beware the beginnings)! Yet, struggling to avoid the dangers of insufficient democratic vigilance (hypovigilance) we have become oblivious to the dangers of excessive democratic vigilance (hypervigilance). While the democratic risks of misidentifying undemocratic actors (“false negative”) seem obvious, the misidentification of democratic actors (“false positives”) carries serious moral, rhetorical, strategic, and systemic risks as well. I describe the tension between these “conflicting imperatives” as a “dilemma of democratic vigilance” and lay out a set of maxims of democratic prudence and fairness that should help us navigating it in a self-restrained, responsible manner.