The Great Experiment

November 1, 2021

Born in Germany to Polish Jewish parents, educated at Cambridge and Harvard, and an associate professor in international affairs at Johns Hopkins, Mounk takes on the currently vexed question of whether multiethnic democracies are viable and argues in their favor. He starts by rewriting Hobbes, asserting that the state exists to keep not individuals but groups from killing each other, and goes on to argue that group identity isn't as us-vs.-them rigid as is often assumed. He then tours the world, starting with two peoples in southeastern Africa who are in conflict in one country and cooperative in the country next door, to show that diverse groups can join harmoniously--as long as they are equal. Therein lies the challenge, and Mounk suggests how we arrive at that hopeful place.

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January 3, 2022
Accommodating migrants and racial and religious minorities in democratic countries is a difficult but necessary project, according to this hopeful meditation on a multicultural world. Political scientist Mounk (The People vs. Democracy) explores the ingrained “groupishness” that separates people into arbitrary warring camps—in one study he cites, schoolboys who preferred modernist painter Paul Klee discriminated against those who liked artist Wassily Kandinsky—and notes that democracies often handle diversity badly, either through the domination of minorities by a majority, or by fragmentation into hostile tribes. But he opposes voices on the right who argue that only monocultural nation states are stable, as well as those on the left who champion the overthrow of majority cultures by militant minority identity politics. Instead, he advocates a multicultural patriotism that welcomes and integrates minorities and migrants, using the metaphor of a public park, in which distinctive groups can harmoniously connect. Writing with insight, nuance, and sympathy to all sides, Mounk stakes out moderate positions—for instance, he argues that borders secure from illegal crossings can reconcile citizens to large-scale migration—that will please neither of the extremes in the culture wars over demographic change. This perceptive account stakes out a firm middle ground. Agent: Amelia Atlas, ICM Partners.

March 1, 2022
A well-considered examination of current threats to democratic societies and how to resist them. Mounk, a professor of international affairs and contributing editor at the Atlantic, traces the connection between the Founders' idea of a self-governing republic and the modern ideal of a democracy that protects diverse members of society, majority and minority alike. There are internal tensions everywhere. "The very logic of self-government, with its constant imperative to cobble together a majority of like-minded voters," writes the author, "makes it tempting for citizens to exclude those they regard as different from full participation in their polity." Diversity yields conflict, especially in times when identity politics come to the fore. Many Italians, for example, might say that an Italian's distant ancestors lived in Italy, excluding African and Asian immigrants from any possibility of joining the polity. Mounk allows that immigration is a vexing challenge to European and North American societies, especially when so many politicians decry Islam as being fundamentally incompatible with Western ideals even if most Muslim immigrants wholly support the democratic tenets of their new homes. It will take considerable goodwill to do so, but, Mounk insists, "people drawn from different ethnic and cultural groups can, without needing to give up their own identities, embark on a meaningfully shared life." Enemies of such a view are legion, of course, and even the best-intentioned among us "are hardwired to form groups" that exclude those who are in some way not like us. Democracies that have failed, such as Lebanon, have devolved into "consociational" societies in which identity politics are everything: Sunni vs. Shia, Muslim vs. Christian. Understandably, nationalism then thrives, the lifeblood of demagogues like Putin and Trump. To counter them, Mounk encourages the development of "civic patriotism" and firmer commitment to democratic ideals, from battling terrorism to providing equal access to "key services like quality health care or core entitlements like paid family leave." A thoughtful, timely defense of the ideal of a participatory, open society.

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