What’s Wrong with Democracy?
Three Answers, No Consensus
with John Owen, PhD
(Department of Politics, UVA)
Wilson Hall, Room 402
Democracy in America and the Western world is really a hybrid – liberal democracy, where ‘democracy’ means majority rule and ‘liberal’ means individual liberty.
One reason why democracy is in trouble these days is that ‘individual liberty’ means at least three different things that are hard to reconcile. The oldest conception is classical liberalism which gave way to welfare liberalism after World War II; and in the 1980s open liberalism, a rejection of traditional norms and boundaries, took over. In this lecture, Professor Owen will talk about these three liberalisms, how the changes happened, why it’s a problem, and where we go from here.
April 11, 2023 at 5:00 P.M.
John Owen is Taylor Professor of Politics, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs. He holds an A.B. from Duke University, an M.P.A from Princeton University, and a Ph.D from Harvard University. His expertise is in war, regime change, religion, and international security.
Books by John Owen