The Great Experiment: A Conversation with Yascha Mounk

The Institute for Humane Studies' President and CEO, Emily Chamlee-Wright had a conversation with Yascha Mounk, associate professor of the practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University and Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, about his new book, “The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure” (Penguin Press, 2022).

Mounk examines how diverse democracies have long suffered from the ills of domination, fragmentation, or structured anarchy. So it is hardly surprising that most people are now deeply pessimistic that different groups might be able to integrate in harmony, celebrating their differences without essentializing them. But Mounk shows us that the past can offer crucial insights for how to do better in the future.

Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini senior fellow at Stanford University, calls “The Great Experiment” a  “blueprint for a more optimistic future.”

Yascha Mounk is a writer, academic and public speaker known for his work on the crisis of democracy and the defense of philosophically liberal values.

Born in Germany to Polish parents, Yascha received his BA in History from Trinity College Cambridge and his PhD in Government from Harvard University. He is an associate professor of the practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute. Yascha is also a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Founder of Persuasion.

Yascha has written four books: “Stranger in My Own Country - A Jewish Family in Modern Germany,” a memoir about Germany’s fraught attempts to deal with its past; “The Age of Responsibility – Luck, Choice and the Welfare State,” which argues that a growing obsession with the concept of individual responsibility has transformed western welfare states; “The People versus Democracy – Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It,” which explains the causes of the populist rise and investigates how to renew liberal democracy; and “The Great Experiment - Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure,” which argues that anybody who seeks to help ethnically and religiously diverse democracies thrive has reason to embrace a more ambitious vision for their future than is now fashionable. 

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