Peking University, Oct. 28, 2018: From October 12th to 19th, 2018, at the invitation of Peking University Global Fellowship, Professor Jan-Werner Müller from Department of Politics, Princeton University, visited Peking University. During his visit, Professor Jan-Werner Müller delivered two lectures in Institute of Humanities and Social Science (IHSS), a keynote speech in the international seminar “Populism, Right-Wing Politics and Europe’s Future”, and attended a symposium with students and teachers from School of Government, Peking University.
Professor Jan-Werner Müller is an influential scholar in the western academic world. He is the author of Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth Century Europe, Constitutional Patriotism, and other works. The year 2016 has seen the publication of What is Populism?, which has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Jan-Werner Müller’s lecture
On the afternoon of October 12th, 2018, Professor Jan-Werner Müller’s first lecture “Is Democracy really in crisis?” was held in Room 208, Jingyuan Courtyard No. 2, Peking University. Professor Jan-Werner Müller mainly focused on recent crisis of western democracy. He talked about problems hidden behind the three popular inferences of democracy, the meaning of populism, and the structural factors, which result in the rise of populism and the weakness of democracy.
Jan-Werner Müller delivering
On the evening of October 17, 2018, Professor Jan-Werner Müller’s second lecture “Carl Schmitt and the Rise of ‘Illiberal democracy’” was held. Professor Jan-Werner Müller began the lecture with the international debate aroused by Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán Viktor’s use of “illiberal democracy” in his speech in 2014. During the lecture, he explored the origin of “illiberal democracy”, analyzed the differences between democracy and liberalism, and the change of the meaning of liberalism. At the end of the lecture, Professor Jan-Werner Müller returned to the original question “Does ‘illiberal democracy’ accurately describe forms of governments of Hungary’s kind?” He believed that these countries’ democracy was damaged while they didn’t completely transform to authoritarian countries. Therefore, he suggested to use the phrase: “damaged democracy”.
Written by: Wang Xiaokun
Edited by: Ma Yaoli, Hu Rong
