Yascha Mounk – författare

* SELECTED FOR BARACK OBAMA'S SUMMER READING LIST 2022 *'Anyone interested in the future of liberal democracy should read this book'ANNE APPLEBAUM----------One of our most important political thinkers looks to the greatest challenge of our time: how to live together equally and peacefully in diverse democracies.It’s easy to be pessimistic about the fate of democracy in multi-ethnic societies. At the end of the Second World War, fewer than one in twenty-five people living in the UK were born abroad; now it is one in seven. The history of humankind is a story of us versus them, and the project of diverse democracies is a relatively new one – it is, in other words, a great experiment.How do identity groups with different ideologies and beliefs live together? Is it possible to embark on a democracy with shared values if our values are at odds?Yascha Mounk argues that group identity is both deeply rooted and malleable. No community is beyond conciliation: groups are moving towards cooperation across the world. The Great Experiment offers a profound understanding of the problem behind all our other problems, and genuine hope for our capacity to solve it.

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceResponsibility—which once meant the moral duty to help and support others—has come to be equated with an obligation to be self-sufficient. This has guided recent reforms of the welfare state, making key entitlements conditional on good behavior. Drawing on political theory and moral philosophy, Yascha Mounk shows why this re-imagining of personal responsibility is pernicious—and suggests how it might be overcome.“This important book prompts us to reconsider the role of luck and choice in debates about welfare, and to rethink our mutual responsibilities as citizens.”—Michael J. Sandel, author of Justice“A smart and engaging book… Do we so value holding people accountable that we are willing to jeopardize our own welfare for a proper comeuppance?”—New York Times Book Review“An important new book… [Mounk] mounts a compelling case that political rhetoric…has shifted over the last half century toward a markedly punitive vision of social welfare.”—Los Angeles Review of Books“A terrific book. The insight at its heart—that the conception of responsibility now at work in much public rhetoric and policy is both punitive and ill-conceived—is very important and should be widely heeded.”—Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice“Everyone worried about the state of contemporary politics should read this book.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter“A trenchant survey from 1989, with its democratic euphoria, to the current map of autocratic striving.”—David Remnick, New YorkerThe world is in turmoil. From Russia and Turkey across Europe to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power as two core components of liberal democracy—individual rights and the popular will—are increasingly at war. As the role of money in politics has soared, a system of “rights without democracy” has taken hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people. But in practice they create something just as bad: a system of “democracy without rights.” Yascha Mounk offers a clear and trenchant analysis of what ails our democracy and what it will take to get it back on track.“Democracy is going through its worst crisis since the 1930s… But what exactly is the nature of this crisis? And what is driving it? The People vs. Democracy stands out in a crowded field for the quality of its answers to these questions.”—The Economist“Brilliant… As this superb book makes clear, we need both the liberal framework and the democracy, and bringing them back together is the greatest challenge of our time.”—Los Angeles Times“Extraordinary…provides a clear, concise, persuasive, and insightful account of the conditions that made liberal democracy work—and how the breakdown in those conditions is the source of the current crisis of democracy around the world.”—The Guardian

‘A fascinating account of the intellectual origins of identity politics' Financial Times, Books of the YearThe origins, consequences and limitations of an ideology that has quickly become highly influential around the world.For much of their history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. It is no surprise then that many who passionately believe in social justice have come to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity if they are to resist injustice.But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minorities has transformed into an obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology - which Yascha Mounk terms the 'identity synthesis' - seeks to put each citizen's matrix of identities at the heart of social, cultural and political life. This, he argues, is The Identity Trap.Mounk traces the intellectual origin of these ideas. He tells the story of how they were able to win tremendous power over the past decade. And he makes a nuanced case why their application to areas from education to public policy is proving to be deeply counterproductive. In his passionate plea for universalism and humanism, he argues that the proponents of identitarian ideas will, though they may be full of good intentions, make it harder to achieve progress towards genuine equality.