Yascha Mounk

The Endless Contemplation (Of Democracy)

CNN

Yascha Mounk is a modern German-American political scientist and intellectual who grapples with issues such as democratic backsliding, and the threat of populism to a liberal democracy. Mounk’s work focuses on balancing a liberal society and a democratic government and how democracy can potentially threaten individual rights.

Mounk was born in 1982, to Polish-Jewish parents in Germany. In his adolescence, he and his parents lived in a small Jewish community, where he felt like an outcast while dealing with healing wounds from post-Nazi Germany. Mounk’s book, A Stranger in My Own Country, details his experiences growing up in a post-authoritarian society and how that shaped his focus to emphasize the importance of community to the enduring health of liberal democracy. Yascha Mounk has made himself known as an expert on the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of populism, allowing his work to be added to the modern intellectual playbook.

Democratic Ideas:

Democratic Backsliding:

Mounk highlights an ongoing trend in established democratic countries of citizens becoming increasingly less satisfied with their form of government and more open to nondemocratic alternatives. Mounk asserts that if this trend, known as democratic backsliding, continues then the stability of democracy as a whole may begin to be challenged globally. Mounk attributes this trend to the growing dissatisfaction citizens in wealthy countries are experiencing with their governmental institutions.

Populism

Mounk dedicates a considerable amount of time to emphasize the dangers that populism poses to democracy. He discusses the weaponization of populism by political leaders strictly to satisfy their own self-interests. For example, convincing your voter base that their social status is in jeopardy simply because another racial group is being enfranchised. In this specific instance, he details that by manipulating a particular group’s interests to align with the interests of the populist, our representative institutions can be weaponized to pass legislation counter to the rights of other groups. Mounk believes that allowing political figures to weaponize their platforms for their gain, naturally, begins the erosion process for our political institutions.

What Comes Next…?

Yascha Mounk’s work on liberal democracy prompts a progressive and thorough critique regarding the flaws of Western democracy and the potential steps needed to ensure its life-long endurance. Through his emphasis on the dangers of populism, Mounk stresses the need to protect democratic institutions from those who would weaponize them. Only then when our institutions are safeguarded from the threat of despotism, can the vision of democracy be refocused and the healing process began.