Professor David Chandler is one of the most vivid critics who are questioning the current debate on global democracy. As it seems, resistence to dominant political discourse and power tends to shift to the private sphere and Chandler will examine this assumed trend.

Democracy, Visibility and Resistance

This lecture was of interest both to those in academia and to members of the general public. It concerned the erosion of the public sphere as the centre of political life - of democracy and of the resistance to power. Where, once, issues of politics, power and resistance were publicly on view, through the contestation of mass parties, unions and associations, today, the public sphere seems much less central. For many commentators, what goes on in parliament or at the state level is much less important than the 'everyday' politics which takes place out of the glare of publicity, in our private choices and decisions. Are they right, that power has shifted from the state to society? Do we make 'more of a difference' as private citizens than as public ones? Is this shift to society a sign of the spread and diffusion of democratic power? Is resistance increasingly a private act rather than a public one? 

David Chandler 

David Chandler is Professor of International Relations and Research Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster. He is a regular media commentator, founding editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding and the editor of a new journal Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses. He is also editor of the Routledge book series Studies in Intervention and Statebuilding and a new series Advances in Democratic Theory.
http://www.davidchandler.org

Programme

Welcoming Remarks
Tobias Debiel, Director, KHK / GCR 21

Comments
Volker Heins, Head of the Research Area “Interculturality”, Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), Essen
Kai Koddenbrock, Fellow, Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), Berlin

Moderator
Frank Gadinger, Head of Research Unit, KHK / GCR21 

18:15 –19:00 Get Together