Charles Taylor on Degenerations and Regenerations of Democracy

Democracy in Question?

Guests featured in this episode:

Charles Taylor, one of the most preeminent contemporary philosophers of our times. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University in Montreal. He was Fellow of All Souls College and Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University. His remarkably vast oeuvre includes landmark monographs on Hegel, social theory, religion, language, and multiculturalism. Among his books let me mention Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (1989), Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (1992), or A Secular Age (2007) which have decisively shaped contemporary debates in their respective fields. His latest book, co-authored with Craig Calhoun and Dilip Gaonkar is called Degenerations of Democracy.

Glossary
What is the murder of George Floyd?
(08:51 or p.3 in the transcript)

On May 25, 2020, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck for almost 10 minutes. The death, recorded by bystanders, touched off what may have been the largest protest movement in U.S. history and a nationwide reckoning on race and policing. After video of the incident was posted on Facebook, protests began almost immediately in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the nation. Demonstrators chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe” took to the streets from coast to coast, and police departments around the country responded at times with riot-control tactics. By early June, protests were so widespread that over 200 American cities had imposed curfews and half of the United States had activated the National Guard. Marches continued and spread throughout June, despite the restrictions on gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic and militarized resistance from federal and local law enforcement. More than 2,000 cities and towns in all 50 states saw some form of demonstration in the weeks after Floyd’s death, as well as major cities across the globe: source

What is the Hungarian Revolution of 1956?
(13:06 or p.4 in the transcript)

Hungarian Revolution was a popular uprising in Hungary in 1956, following a speech by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in which he attacked the period of Joseph Stalin’s rule. Encouraged by the new freedom of debate and criticism, a rising tide of unrest and discontent in Hungary broke out into active fighting in October 1956. Rebels won the first phase of the revolution, and Imre Nagy became premier, agreeing to establish a multiparty system. On November 1, 1956, he declared Hungarian neutrality and appealed to the United Nations for support, but Western powers were reluctant to risk a global confrontation. On November 4 the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to stop the revolution, and Nagy was executed for treason in 1958. Nevertheless, Stalinist-type domination and exploitation did not return, and Hungary thereafter experienced a slow evolution toward some internal autonomy: source

What is the Ukrainian refugee crisis?
(15:16 or p.4 in the transcript)

The ongoing Ukrainian refugee crisis began in February 2022 immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At present, around 8 million of Ukrainians fled the country as Russia indiscriminately targeted civilian populations with rockets and artillery strikes. By late March some four million Ukrainians had fled the fighting; this represented Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. The overwhelming majority would find safety in Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. 90% of the refugees are women and children as Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country: source

What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
(18:13 or p.5 in the transcript)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), foundational document of international human rights law. It has been referred to as humanity’s Magna Carta by Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights that was responsible for the drafting of the document. After minor changes it was adopted unanimously—though with abstentions from the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian SSR, and Yugoslavia—by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 (now celebrated annually as Human Rights Day), as a “common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.” The French jurist René Cassin was originally recognized as the principal author of the UDHR. It is now well established, however, that, although no individual can claim ownership of this document, John Humphrey, a Canadian professor of law and the UN Secretariat’s Human Rights Director, authored its first draft. Also instrumental in the drafting of the UDHR were Roosevelt; Chang Peng-chun, a Chinese playwright, philosopher, and diplomat; and Charles Habib Malik, a Lebanese philosopher and diplomat: source

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• Central European University: CEU

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Podcast Company: Novel

Follow us on social media!

• Central European University: @CEU

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!