Jan-Werner Müller: The critical infrastructure of democracy

Ever since the nineteenth century, political parties and professional media were widely deemed indispensable for the proper functioning of representative democracy. They constituted what one might call the critical infrastructure of democracy, an infrastructure which enabled citizens to use their basic rights effectively and also to reach each other (and be reached). Both intermediary institutions are undergoing major structural transformations today. It has proven difficult to judge these changes, partly because we lack a proper account of the distinctive roles of intermediary institutions beyond standard claims of “connecting citizens to the political system”. The lecture will offer such an account and also suggest normative criteria for judging how well intermediary powers are working.

Jan-Werner Müller – The critical infrastructure of democracy
09.03.2021 |19.00 | Livestream

Jan-Werner Müller is Professor for Political Theory at Princeton University. He is co-founder of the European College of Liberal Arts (ECLA; today: Bard College Berlin). In addition to numerous published articles in the international press, Müller is the author of various monographs such as “Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe” (2013), “Was ist Populism? Ein Essay” (2016), or “Furcht und Freiheit. Für einen anderen Liberalismus” (2019). His essay “Was ist Populismus?” has been translated into numerous languages and is considered a central work for understanding contemporary political developments. Currently, Müller is developing a reassessment of intermediary institutions in democracy, which he will examine in the lecture.

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