Overview

⏱️Schedule:  Doors 18:30 → Talk 19:00→ Q&A → Mingle
🌐Language: English 

From “Trump 2.0” in the United States to Turkey, Israel, Hungary, and the AfD here in Germany, democracies are facing actors who use democratic rules to undermine democracy itself. Many of these actors come to power democratically and enjoy real popular support.

This isn’t a new problem, but it puts pressure on a powerful promise — especially in Germany — the promise of “never again.” What was that promise meant to protect, and how far should it go? Should democracies ban those who seek to destroy them from within, as “militant democracy” suggests, or try to include them in the hope of moderation?

In this talk, we’ll explore five big questions:

1. What do democracies around the world usually do when they face anti-democratic actors — ban them, tolerate them, or try to contain them?

2. What, if anything, justifies banning anti-democratic actors? And does banning “enemies” risk making us less democratic ourselves?

3. Who actually counts as anti-democratic — and who gets to decide?

4. What are the promises and dangers of militant democracy? Can it be abused in practice, and can we design a democracy that protects itself without creating new risks?

5. What role do citizens actually play in democratic defense? (Hint: it’s more than posting stickers in Berlin bar bathrooms)

We’ll draw on examples from around the world and touch on law, politics, history, and ethics. This is not a lawyerly lecture or a pundit monologue — it’s a conversation among citizens, across the political spectrum, thinking together about what democracy means and how we want it defended.

Speaker

Ahmed Elbasyouny

PhD Fellow | Center for Constitutional Democracy at Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Ahmed Elbasyouny is a PhD Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Democracy at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. In Berlin, he is currently a Visiting Fellow at RefLex at Humboldt University’s Faculty of Law, where he works on democratic defense. Ahmed is obsessed with democratizing democracy — and making it everyone’s business.