Yascha Mounk

Liberal democracy is based on a number of foundational assumptions. Among these are ideas such as that of the public good; the existence of a shared public sphere; the ability of citizens to get reliable information about politics; and so on. The major political, economic, and technological developments of the last years suggest that many of these foundational assumptions are more brittle than have been widely assumed. The idea that parliaments are deliberating in good faith about what might constitute the public good now seem altogether quaint. The public sphere is increasingly splintering into different bubbles, and a shared reality based on factual consensus is proving increasingly elusive. In this project, Mounk hopes to systematize and evaluate some of the foundational assumptions that underwrite our political system. What are the basic assumptions—some explicit, others implicit—on which we have long relied? Which of these assumptions should now be dismissed or reformulated? And what does that imply in terms of how to rebuild our democratic institutions for the 21st century?