The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events

Abstract
Patrick Nitzschner’s research at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften is concerned with the question how historically changing uses of democracy relate to the formation of transatlantic societies. In his talk, Nitzschner zooms in on the interwar idea of militant democracy, the repressive safeguarding of existing liberal democratic institutions against subversion. His original claim is that militant democracy contains a theory of world politics. Following the example of global fascism, it fashions a defensive democratic internationalism based on a minimally democratic technique of power. This reading offers a new perspective on the history of liberal democratic thought and on current responses to a double »crisis« of liberal democracy and its transatlantic center. Nitzschner suggests that different responses to this conjuncture can be made available through a rethinking of social transformation through the prism of democracy and the international.

The speaker
Patrick Nitzschner received his doctorate from Lund University in Sweden with a thesis titled »Defending what is yet to come. Towards a critical theory of democratic defence«. In 2025/26 he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften and part of the research focus »Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World«. From Spring 2026 onwards, he will continue his research in the Politics and Society research unit at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University.

Participation
Closed event. Contact: Beate Sutterlüty; email: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de