Mapping Crisis Across Borders: Balázs Trencsényi on the Interwar Period, Intellectual History, and the Future of Democracy

In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, we speak with historian Balázs Trencsényi about his new book Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond: A Transnational History (OUP, 2025). Trencsényi offers a sweeping re-narration of modern European intellectual history through the lens of “crisis” — not only asan analytical category, but as a powerful tool of political mobilisation. We explore how crisis discourses evolved during the interwar period, why that moment still resonates today, and how populism and neoliberalism emerged aschildren of crisis. A key theme is the idea of a "second Sattelzeit" — or “saddle time,” a pivotal era of conceptual transformation — through which we also reflect on the Koselleckian legacy of researching historical crisis, time, and meaning. From rethinking political modernity to decentring the Western canon, this conversation examines what it means to think historically in times of deep upheaval and how such thinking can help us better respond to the challenges facing democracy today. Balázs Trencsényi is Professor of History at Central European University and Director of its Institute for Advanced Study in Budapest. A historian of East Central European political and cultural thought, he has led major comparative and transnational research projects, including the ERC-funded Negotiating Modernity project.

In this episode of Open Space(s) series, the Reviewof Democracy brings to your attention one of Europe’s most ambitious cultural institutions: the House of European History. Founded by the European Parliament in 2017 in Brussels, this unique institution explores Europe’s past from a transnational perspective and provides a platform for debating shared memory. The House of European Historycurates exhibitions, fosters debates, and research the shared European histories.Our guest is Simina Bădică, who is a curator at the House of European History in Brussels. Prior to her work at the House of the European History, she was a researcher, curator and the Head of Ethnological Archives at the Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest. She defended her PhD at the Central European University with a dissertation on the practices of curating Communism.Throughout our conversation, we explore the precise meaning of the term ‘house of history’ and how this institution seeks to put this notion into practice. Forthe House of European History, the notion of open space has a crucial importance. On one hand, the building located in Brussels, initially designed in the 1920s as a dental hospital, invites visitors to engage more deeply with European narratives. At the same time, its strong digital exhibitionsencourages visitors and practitioners to interact with the content in creative ways. While rooted in the museum’s physical space, the digital exhibitions speak to a broader, virtual European public.Exhibiting for such a broad audience inevitably raises complex curatorial questions. Thus, we discuss the challenges of curating information in 24 languages, the role of digital tools, and the multiple ways in which House of European History aims to connect with the local andinternational public. Nowhere is this curatorial balance more visible than in its exhibitions, both permanent and temporary.In our dialogue, we focus on two extremely relevant cases: Facts for Real: A History of Forgery and Falsification, a touringexhibition that presents falsifications throughout European history; and Presence of the Past: A European Album, a visually rich exhibition that rethinks how Europeans interpret their entangled histories through documentary photos.  Can a museum be both local and European? How cancurators respond to an increasingly political and social polarization without reducing complexity? What are the curatorial approaches that encourage the participants to ask nuanced questions about history? This conversation offers areflection of these question, based on the expertise of those working at the intersection of public history and museology. Public historians, museum practitioners, as well as scholars will definitely find this Open Space(s) episode extremely relevant.

In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, Alexandra Medzibrodszky talks to Leigh Jenco and Paulina Ochoa Espejo—two of the three co-authors of the new textbook Political Theory: A Global and Comparative Introduction, published by SAGE. Co-authored with Murad Idris, this groundbreaking volume reimagines how political theory is taught and understood by moving beyond a Eurocentric focus and embracing a truly global and comparative framework. Rather than organizing content around geographical regions or national traditions, the book takes a thematic approach—exploring war, political action, development, ritual, and other enduring political questions through a rich array of sources from across cultures and time periods. In the conversation, we discuss what it means to think politically beyond the Western canon, how to work with texts that are often marginalized or excluded from mainstream syllabi, and what challenges arise when dealing with disciplinary boundaries. We also reflect on the pedagogical value of open-ended inquiry and the democratic potential of teaching political theory as a space for students to ask the questions that matter most to them. As Leigh and Paulina explain, the aim is not to simply add more voices, but to shift the structure of the conversation itself—to replace a single sun with a galaxy of perspectives. Ultimately, the book opens up new ways of thinking about politics and democracy itself—its possibilities, its limits, and the many ways it has been imagined around the world.

Startups have become one of the defining features of the 21st-century economy, celebrated as engines of innovation, meritocracy, and social mobility. Entrepreneurs—from Silicon Valley to Bangalore—are increasingly influential in shaping not just markets but also political discourse. Governments around the world areinvesting heavily in building startup ecosystems, often presenting them as neutral, technocratic spaces of economic growth and opportunity. In this conversation with Hemangini Gupta, we complicate this optimistic narrative. Gupta explores how startup cultures in India—often hailed as symbols of democratic opportunity and disruption capitalism—are in fact deeply shaped bycaste, gender, and labor hierarchies. Drawing on her book Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India  (University of California Press, 2024), Gupta critiques the myth of meritocracy and masculine genius thatdominates tech cultures in Bangalore, seconded and supported by deeply racial structures of tech production in the Silicon Valley. Instead, she reveals how these “disruption capitals” reproduce exclusionary norms of heteropatriarchyand caste privilege, challenging the idea that innovation and entrepreneurship naturally align with democratic empowerment. Her work raises urgent questionsabout the relationship between entrepreneurialism and democratic life: Can startup cultures be reimagined as spaces of collective belonging and resistance, or are they fundamentally aligned with individualism and exclusion?

In this episode of Open Space(s), the Review of Democracy focuses on Lviv, where the Center for Urban Historyoffers a unique institutional model at the intersection between memory, space, and digital innovation. Founded in 2004 and located at 6 Bohomoltsia Street, Lviv, the Center for Urban History has become a vital node in public history and digital humanities. It defines itself as a hybrid institution with a hybrid audience.The podcast has as guest Bohdan Shumylovych, who is a historian, researcher, and professor at the UkrainianCatholic University. The conversation traces how the Center emerged outside traditional academic conventions by fostering bottom-up approaches. In our conversation, you can learn more about the various approaches of the Center for Urban History, from archiving media to mapping the shifting street names of Lviv. Space plays an important role in this context. Shumylovych reflects on the role of the building, designed by Ukrainian architect Ivan Levynskyi, in a once multiethnic, bourgeois neighborhood, as itself a palimpsest of empire, war, andpost-Soviet transformation. The episode explores how the Center for Urban History re-defined its role during war, including the urgent initiative Documenting the Experiences of War, which builds digital oral histories and archives in the context of the conflict. Whether digitizing diaries, archivingTelegram chats, or reimagining exhibition-as-research, the Center resists top-down narratives in favor of multiple perspectives. The conversation also engages with broader questions that can be relevant for a broader public: how does public history resist nationalist paradigms? How would we work with street names that carry imperial, Polish, Soviet meanings?Shumylovych offers nuanced answers on these issues, and he insists on partnerships between academics and municipalities, between archives and the public. As well, as Bohdan mentioned, they are proudly fostering a cat!Public historians, history teachers, art curators and scholars alike will definitely find this Open Space(s) episode particularly meaningful.

Since the beginning of the year, the Trump administration has been trampling on different sectors of the U.S. state. Numerous commentators, both from the U.S. and abroad, have argued that the issue of a potential “constitutional crisis”—one that could pave the way for authoritarianism—essentially hinges on whether the government complies with court orders. In contrast, Professors Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn have argued that this focus is, at the very least, misplaced. So far, rather than protecting democracy, the courts have helped pave the way for the current situation. This raises important questions about the right pro-democratic strategy—not only in the U.S., but also in European countries such as Germany, where the far-right is on the rise and the judiciary is widely seen as the bulwark against authoritarianism. In this conversation, Samuel Moyn explains the dangers of placing too strong a focus on legality in the fight against authoritarianism. Drawing on the work of Judith Shklar on legalism, Moyn argues that lawyers often tend to believe that the law operates independently of politics, that its interpretation is straightforward, and that simply following the rules is sufficient to fulfill their duties. These beliefs carry the risk of discouraging critical reflection on whether the rules themselves are just, and they also pose the danger that, when progressives lose in the political arena, they may rely too heavily on the law in the hope that it will offer protection. This, however, is far from guaranteed, as the law is a domain where opponents of democracy and human rights also hold power. In the context of the United States, Moyn points out that debates about “reclaiming the judiciary” may overlook a deeper issue: that institutions like the Supreme Court have evolved into overly powerful policymakers, contributing to phenomena such as the rise of Donald Trump. He argues that disempowering the courts could not only return policymaking authority to elected officials but also help avoid placing excessive hope in an institution that is unlikely to meet such expectations. The second part of the discussion shifts to current events in Europe. Moyn raises doubts about whether militant democracy—particularly the party ban procedure—is an effective tool to counter the rise of right-wing politics in Germany. He suggests that militant democracy may only be viable when it is unnecessary, and unworkable when it is truly needed. After also addressing the possibility of Marine Le Pen being barred from running in France’s next presidential election, the conversation concludes with a reflection on what a progressive political strategy against the far right might involve. Here, Moyn argues that attempting to imitate right-wing politics in order to win back voters is likely to fail, as people tend to prefer the original. Instead, he suggests that for progressive parties, the more effective path may be to move left.Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University, where he also serves as head of Grace Hopper College.The conversation was conducted by Konstantin Kipp. Alina Young edited the audio file.

In this interview Review of Democracy political economy editor Kristóf Szombati speaks with Vincent Liegey— degrowth activist, essayist, lecturer and editorial advisor of the new Routledge Handbook of Degrowth — about the roots, trajectory, and challenges of the degrowth movement.Beginning with the rise of degrowth from activist origins in early 2000s France to a now-global intellectual and political project, the wide-ranging conversation engages withdegrowth as an intellectual project and as a social movement, focusing on its breakthrough into mainstream discussion and the hurdles to it building up its influence. Liegey, who is originally from France but has been living for a long time in Hungary, touches on the erosion of trust in mainstream politics, the psychological cost of economiclife, and the political ambivalence of youth. Despite an admittedly grim outlook for a politics of solidarity, he highlights the power and autonomy of networked grassroots communities and insists that “everything is already here”to build a livable post-growth future. To get there he calls for a three-pronged strategy based on survival, resistance, and readiness. 

In recent years, the EU’s increasingly right-leaning discourse on migration has given rise to a new narrative: the instrumentalization of migration. EU member states strivefor lower human rights standards, arguing that Belarus, under the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenko, deliberately sends individuals who have fled countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq to the EU’s borders in order to overwhelm them, at times even accusing these individuals of collaborating with Belarusian authorities. Currently, three cases related to this situation are pending before the European Court of Human Rights. In this conversation, Prof. Nora Markard examines the origins of the narrative of the “instrumentalization of migration” and the legal challenges it presents—particularly with regard tothe principle of non-refoulement and the prohibition of collective expulsion in the pending cases. She argues that these cases pose a serious threat to the rule of law, as EU member states increasingly disregard their obligations undermigration law and seek exceptions before the court. The discussion then shifts to broader challenges in human rights protection, including the misappropriation of rights and the question of whether a strong focus on the legality of state actions might actually undermine human rights. ]Prof. Markard notes that, while human rights are being questioned today in ways that might not have occurred a decade ago—and despite legitimate criticisms of the humanrights framework—it remains essential to make the most of it.

In the latest episode of our monthly special incooperation with the Journal of Democracy, Francis Fukuyama and Beatriz Magaloni discuss why democratic legitimacy increasingly hinges on governments’ ability to deliver tangible results.Drawing on their co-authored article with Chris Dann, “Delivering for Democracy: Why Results Matter” (April2025, Vol. 26, No. 2), Fukuyama and Magaloni examine how unmet expectations around infrastructure, security, and economic opportunity are fueling distrust in democratic systems and possibly opening the door to authoritarianalternatives. The conversation explores the performance–legitimacy nexus, whether democracies can overcome their “vetocratic” hurdles without compromising their core values, and what reforms might help reverse the global democratic malaise.

In the new episode of our monthly special in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy, Serhii Plokhii discusses the key aspects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the clash between democracy and autocracy.Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at the Harvard University, analyzes the development of Russian and Ukrainian political cultures, considers democracy as a factor of international relations, and assesses the impact of the war.In the framework of this partnership, authors discuss outstanding articles from the latest print issue of the Journal of Democracy. The conversation is based on Serhii Plokhii’s article “David vs. Goliath: Defeating Russian Autocracy” which has been published in the April 2025 (36/2) issue.