Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but he began to identify what he believed to be errors in Marxist thinking and began to criticize views held by Marxism when he investigated and challenged the Marxist materialist theory of history. He rejected significant parts of Marxist theory that were based upon Hegelian metaphysics and rejected the Hegelian perspective of an immanent economic necessity to socialism.
Hans-Jochen Vogel was a German lawyer and a politician for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as Mayor of Munich from 1960 to 1972, winning the 1972 Summer Olympics for the city and Governing Mayor of West Berlin in 1981, the only German ever to lead two cities with a million+ inhabitants. He was Federal Minister of Regional Planning, Construction and Urban Development from 1972 to 1974, and Federal Minister of Justice from 1974 to 1981. He served as leader of the SPD in the Bundestag from 1983 to 1991, and as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1987 to 1991. In 1993, he co-founded the organisation Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie. He was a member of the National Ethics Council of Germany from its beginning in 2001.
The German revolution of 1918–1919, also known as the November Revolution, was an uprising started by workers and soldiers in the final days of World War I. It quickly and almost bloodlessly brought down the German Empire, then in its more violent second stage, the supporters of a parliamentary republic were victorious over those who wanted a soviet-style council republic. The defeat of the forces of the far Left cleared the way for the establishment of the Weimar Republic.
Michael Laban Walzer is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of the left-wing magazine Dissent, with which he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University, an advisory editor of the Jewish journal Fathom, and sits on the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books.
Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 2009 to 2017, which made him the party's longest-serving leader since Willy Brandt. He was the Federal Minister of the Environment from 2005 to 2009 and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2013 to 2017. From 1999 to 2003 Gabriel was Minister-President of Lower Saxony.
The term "illiberal democracy" describes a governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of illiberal democracy or whether it even exists.
Karl Dietrich Bracher was a German political scientist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Born in Stuttgart, Bracher was awarded a Ph.D. in the classics by the University of Tübingen in 1948 and subsequently studied at Harvard University from 1949 to 1950. During World War II, he served in the Wehrmacht and was captured by the Americans while serving in Tunisia in 1943. Bracher taught at the Free University of Berlin from 1950 to 1958 and at the University of Bonn since 1959. In 1951, Bracher married Dorothee Schleicher, the niece of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They had two children.
Niels Annen is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2021. He served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office from 2018 to 2021 in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Olaf Scholz is a German politician who has been the chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice Chancellor in the fourth Merkel cabinet and as Federal Minister of Finance from 2018 to 2021. He was also First Mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018, deputy leader of the SPD from 2009 to 2019, and Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 2007 to 2009.
The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold was an organization in Germany during the Weimar Republic with the goal to defend German parliamentary democracy against internal subversion and extremism from the left and right and to compel the population to respect and honor the new Republic's flag and constitution. It was formed by members of the left-wing Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the centre-right to right-wing German Centre Party, and the centrist German Democratic Party in February 1924.
Johannes Agnoli was a German political scientist of Italian descent. He analysed the modern democratic state in a post-marxist and structuralist way, trying to show how modern parliamentarism transforms capital interests into illusionary democratic decisions. The mechanisms of party rule and parliamentary procedures lead to an exclusion of social conflicts from political processes and to pacification of the inherent antagonism within society by manipulation.
Grand coalition is a term in German politics describing a governing coalition of the parties Christian Democratic Union (CDU) along with its sister party the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), since they have historically been the major parties in most state and federal elections since 1949. The meaning of the term may change due to the growth of some formerly minor parties in recent years.
Neo-nationalism, or new nationalism, is an ideology and political movement built on the basic characteristics of classical nationalism. It developed to its final form by applying elements with reactionary character generated as a reaction to the political, economic and socio-cultural changes that came with globalization during the second wave of globalization in the 1980s.
Lars Castellucci is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since 2013.
Democratic backsliding is a process of regime change toward autocracy that makes the exercise of political power by the public more arbitrary and repressive. This process typically restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection. Democratic decline involves the weakening of democratic institutions, such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections, or the violation of individual rights that underpin democracies, especially freedom of expression. Democratic backsliding is the opposite of democratization.
Christoph Butterwegge is a German political scientist and poverty researcher. From 1998 to 2016 he was Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Comparative Education and Social Sciences at the Humanities Faculty of the University of Cologne and is a member of the Research Center for Intercultural Studies (FiSt).
James Stephen Lindsay, known professionally as James A. Lindsay, is an American author. He is known for the grievance studies affair, in which he, Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose submitted hoax articles to academic journals in 2017 and 2018 to test scholarship and rigor in several academic fields. Lindsay has written several books including Cynical Theories (2020), which he co-authored with Pluckrose. He has promoted right-wing conspiracy theories such as Cultural Marxism and LGBT grooming conspiracy theories.
David Shor is an American data scientist and political consultant known for analyzing political polls. He serves as head of data science with Blue Rose Research in New York City, and is a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Shor describes himself as a socialist and advised a number of liberal political action committees during the 2020 United States elections.
Lee Drutman is an American political scientist. He is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He is known as an advocate for proportional representation with ranked-choice voting in the U.S. political system, arguing that it would reduce political polarization and minimize the risks of democratic backsliding.
Persuasion is a nonprofit digital magazine and community focused on providing a forum for discussions of society, politics, and culture from a philosophically liberal perspective. Founded in July 2020 by political scientist and Atlantic contributing writer Yascha Mounk, the organization publishes an eponymous digital magazine, Persuasion; produces a weekly podcast, The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk; and hosts online events with speakers from across the political spectrum.
