Yascha Mounk

Today, in countries around the world, support for democracy is waning. And Yascha Mounk provides startling explanations for why people (and especially young people) are losing faith in the liberal democratic tradition—and throwing their support behind populist alternatives. From The New York Times to The Atlantic—and in his upcoming book—he offers practical strategies for keeping democracy alive.

Liberal democracies across the globe are in serious decline, while far-right groups and authoritarian leaders—populists—are on the rise. Keynote speaker Yascha Mounk is a Harvard Lecturer and go-to authority on why democracy is in perilous danger. His third book—titled The People vs. Democracy: Why Democracy Is in Danger and How to Save It, due next year—offers a critically important rationale for this seismic change, weaving together historical, economic, and cultural analysis. While offering a grim diagnosis, Mounk is also hopeful—in engaging talks, he offers practical methods for everyday citizens to combat this trend, and rediscover why our rights, freedoms, and protections are worth fighting for.

Writing regularly for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, CNN, The Nation, and Die Zeit—and appearing on radio and television in over ten countries—Mounk also writes “The Good Fight” column: articles on populism, resistance, activism, and the changing face of democracy for Slate magazine. He’s also the host of a new podcast, also called “The Good Fight,” which interviews political luminaries such as George Packer, Mark Blythe, Brian Klaas, and more.

Mounk’s second book, The Age of Responsibility: Luck, Choice, and the Welfare State, was published by Harvard University Press in May of this year. It explores how our conservative embrace of ‘personal responsibility’ has actually prevented us from empowering individuals—and achieving greater equity. His first, Stranger in My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern Germany, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. To The New York Times, it was a book that “started as a memoir of his experiences growing up as a Jew in Germany, but became a broader investigation of how contemporary European nations were struggling to construct new, multicultural national identities.” It was reviewed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and the Times Literary Supplement, among many other publications, and was translated, fittingly, into German.

Mounk lectures on Political Theory at Harvard University’s Government Department, and is a Fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America. He received his BA in History from Trinity College, Cambridge and his PhD in Government from Harvard University.