The article looks at divisive forces in contemporary societies and links them to the unfulfilled hopes of the revolutions at the beginning of modernity: the hopes for equality, freedom, and fraternity/solidarity. There are, first, in the twenty-first century situation, persistent inequalities that emerge in all the function systems of society and that become divisive as soon as a discontinuous split arises in the distribution of rewards, a split that makes it improbable that someone might switch from one to the other side of a distribution. There are, second, strong asymmetrical dependencies that are connected to an escalation of controls by which persons and groups control resources wanted by others and furthermore build up controls regarding the actions, communications, exit options, and ways of perceiving the world available to these other ones. The more control dimensions are implied in a specific social relation, the stronger and more pervasive asymmetrical dependencies become and then definitely separate in society those who exercise controls from those who are objects of control. There is, third, as a structure of division, the rise of sociocultural polarization that creates a split between significant subcommunities of a society, on the basis of which communities perceive the members of other communities as strangers and as dangerous for the values and ways of life one regards as essential for one’s own community. The article finally explains these societal divisions by studying them as forms of inclusion and exclusion. Inequalities come from cumulations in the inclusion dynamics of function systems; asymmetrical dependencies emerge in institutions and groups that absorb persons that are being excluded from relevant participations; polarizations are based on reciprocal and totalizing exclusions by which communities define the members of other communities as radical “others.”

Liberal democracy is in decline across the globe. Why? The literature provides many answers, i.e., a decline in the power and gatekeeping role of political parties (Lavinsky and Ziblatt), the role of intellectuals (Applebaum), changes in political campaign financing (Balkin), the anti-liberal influence of Donald Trump (Kendzior), the flaws of “democracy” itself (Mounk), to name just a few. Most scholars, however, neglect the underlying causes of these proximate phenomena. In this essay I take a sociological and social-psychological approach to explore the underlying causes. I focus on liberal democracy’s decline in the Industrial West, particularly the United States. I argue that this decline can be partly attributed to the inherent weaknesses/limitations of liberalism, exacerbated in the 21st century by neo-liberal economic forces and digital technology. I contend that liberal values of equality, tolerance, the rule of law, and rational debate chafe against the sacrosanct entrenchment of the neo-liberal free market and its laissez-faire ideology, as well as the inherent liberal neglect of the human need for status, community, heroes, and the impulse to unleash passionate grievances. This chafing has now opened lesions in liberal institutions, exacerbated by widespread disinformation and obscene inequality, I offer three suggestions to strengthen 21st century liberalism: government regulation of social media to censure hate speech and disinformation, new taxes on wealth to reduce economic inequality, and an expansion of the public realm—parks, libraries, beaches, public schools, etc., where “money doesn’t matter.” This last suggestion is crucial. Because economic inequality and precarity will persist in a liberal democratic society even when taxation is more equitable, expansion of the public realm is needed to reduce the impact of inequality in liberal democratic society.

The article addresses transformations in the perception of Liberty and Liberalism, and links them to contemporary concepts of culturality. It provides an analysis of the causes and directionality of the significant shift in our perception of the relation of culture and liberty.

The rise of strident movements of religious nationalism seems to signal a resurgence of religion. But such movements can also be read as the last gasp of religiosity as it succumbs to the inevitability of secular globalization. Which is correct? Has religion revived, or is it in its death throes? Part of the issue is statistical: adherence to religion seems to be on the rise in some parts of the world (Islam in Africa, for instance), though on the decline in others (Christianity in Europe and increasingly in the United States) and under attack in China. But part of the issue is definitional: what is meant by religious adherence—social identity or metaphysical belief? Scholarly attempts to define religion are various, though an interesting new definition is provided by the late sociologist Robert Bellah, who described religion as “alternative reality.” With that definition, one can posit that religiosity is a fundamental part of the creative imagination, a constituent of culture as certain as art or music. The question then becomes not whether religion will survive, but in what way it will survive. The popular religious choice of millennials, “none,” may be consistent with the multicultural religiosity of the old Protestant liberals, a tradition now in decline. Liberal Protestants have not disappeared but have transformed into the bearers of a global morality and spiritual sensibility. Hence we may be witnessing the emergence of new forms of spirituality and ethical community that resonate with the alternative reality of traditional religious experience but that have no name and no organization. But these may become the global religion of the future.

Rodrik’s Trilemma rests on the incompatibility of democracy, national sovereignty, and global economic integration: any two can be combined, but never all three simultaneously and in full. Addressing the same problèmatique but from a different perspective, Dahrendorf’s Quandary posits that, over time, maintaining global economic competitiveness requires countries either to adopt measures detrimental to the cohesion of civil society or to restrict civil liberties and political participation. The purpose of this article is to examine the empirical foundations of Rodrik’s and Dahrendorf’s propositions. When one assesses developed market economies from 1991 to 2014, evidence suggests that only in rare cases can the Trilemma be overcome, and the tensions the Quandary hypothesizes build up to a significant extent. In most cases examined, however, the performance of the countries is too varied to support the broad claims Rodrik and Dahrendorf put forth in their respective writings. Specifically, next to the small group of five cases where either the Trilemma or the Quandary apply, there are twice as many countries that generally managed to grow moderately in terms of economic globalization, liberal democracy, and social cohesion while avoiding some of the tensions implied in the Quandary or reaching Trilemma conditions. For an even larger group of countries, the evidence suggests that growing economic globalization can coexist with lower societal stressor levels.

Compelling visions of how political institutions can be effective and democratic in handling globalization problems is one of our most important predicaments. Political institutions always were deficient in that they were hardly fully effective and democratic. During the prime of liberal democracies, their problem-solving capacity was limited, and the process of making decisions approached democratic ideals at best. Yet the current predicament goes deeper. We lack a compelling vision of ideal political institutions for handling global problems such as climate change. In order to develop this argument, first two criteria for a compelling vision of ideal political institutions are identified. In a second step it is argued that the two currently most crucial institutional visions do not provide convincing accounts for fulfilling these criteria. The paper concludes by suggesting that these weaknesses of both sides of the debate contribute to polarization, thus making the predicament worse.

Globalization has eroded borders, fostered mobility, and deepened inequality virtually everywhere. The waning of the state as the world’s default political unit has had myriad consequences; among the most challenging may be the simultaneous expansion of supranational norms of human rights and contraction of legal, enforceable citizenship. The upheavals of the Arab Spring provided eloquent testimony to both the appeal of rights-based political discourse, as protesters across the region called for “bread, freedom, and social justice,” and the catastrophic consequences of reliance on weakened and ineffectual states to enforce such rights. The baleful landscape of the Middle East today suggests a warning for the rest of the world: enfeebled states may herald the demise of universal human rights.

As the public orders in the global community, in particular being liberal or illiberal, have lost their “social conscience”, we build on lessons learned to create better circumstances, rather than simply making historic judgements. All while striving to reinvigorate the “social conscience” with a greater sense of collectiveness to provide a more comprehensive order for a new global culture. The goal here is to determine how best to regenerate a wider understanding of the “common good” amongst our societies, and how to ensure that we as “peoples” appreciate and embrace collectiveness and determine that our decisions will increasingly have a greater “social conscience” collectively. In a world of globalization, it is important to understand the interconnectedness of people and systems alike. Decisions built on an understanding of the “common good” and “social conscience” will ultimately have a wider influence on a potential global culture willing to reap benefits of individual assets and achievements. Changing from a “balance of power and authority” driven systems to ones driven by different systems is an attempt to achieve a “balance of interest” is due. A paradigm shift should be in force, whereby marginalization and inequality will be reduced; yet not erased. With this critical juncture in the 21st century, it is imperative to rethink the common good. As well as, reinvigorate the “social conscience” and collective sense which are essential to facing the ever-changing global order.

The article is written in the form of an essay (for Dahrendorf Symposium), speculative in essence, yet based on the new selected evidence concerning peoples’ opinions and attitudes disclosed during the pandemic. It starts with remarks about predictions in social sciences and the complex problems in studying the shocks created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Second part is devoted to major challenges and trade-offs states, governments and citizens have to face currently, focusing on one particular which is crucial for the future quality of liberal democracies, that is a trade-off between democratic norms and values and surveillance practices. The article concludes with a discussion of several issues, which have become more salient during the pandemic, challenging our previous knowledge about them.

This article argues that one of the key questions—or even the key question—of our times is how to foster enhanced compatibility between national policy-making sovereignty and effective multilateral cooperation. There are multiple reasons for this. First, given the growing importance of global public good-type policy challenges and the rising trend toward multipolarity, the relationships among countries are now de facto marked by universal multilateralism. International cooperation is no longer only an option, as it conventionally was (especially for the major powers), but a compulsion. This new, binding type of multilateralism is called here “multilateralism 2.0” to distinguish it from the conventional, more optional type of multilateralism. Second, necessary systematic reforms to make global governance fit for the new reality of multilateralism 2.0 are still lacking, because states value their sovereignty. However, a persuasive reform vision and reform leadership have not yet emerged; currently, uncertainty exists about how to have both sovereignty and effective cooperation. The world is experiencing a “Kindleberger moment”: crisis and no leadership. Accordingly, this article offers concrete suggestions on possible ways forward. It suggests that the most important and urgent reform is to forge consensus on a new principle: the “dual-compatibility principle” calling for a commitment of states to (i) more sovereignty-compatible multilateral cooperation and (ii) an exercise of national policy-making sovereignty that is more compatible with multilateral cooperation. To clearly see the critical importance of this principle, a prior, eminently doable reform step is needed: widening the analytical lens of multilateralism to capture both the “real” and the “political” sides of this phenomenon and to recognize that the former is, in effect, the independent variable and the latter the dependent one.

This essay uses the tools of Western empirical reasoning to analyze the origins and driving forces of the ongoing geopolitical contest between China and the United States. The essay argues that the origins of the geopolitical contest lie in China’s rapid growth from the Deng era, the relative socioeconomic decline of the United States, and the failure of the United States to work out a rational, comprehensive strategy for managing China’s rise. Finally, in the fallout of the global COVID-19 pandemic, where the relations between the two countries have been further strained, the essay argues that the two countries can manage their geopolitical rivalry if they concentrate instead on five “noncontradictions” that also characterize their relationship: that between the fundamental national interests of both countries; in tackling climate change; in the ideological sphere; in the American and Chinese civilizations; and in their worldview.

The outbreak of Covid-19 prompted the greatest political intervention in our lifetime. Governments around the world introduced measures that shattered our private life, brought economic life to a virtual standstill, and threw into question the value of international organizations. The article first shows how the political interventions undertaken throughout 2020 have crushed long standing equilibria on such fundamental issues as the notion of a common good, the limits of individual freedom, or the relationship between the state and markets. It then analyses the battle of power and minds between the main political protagonists. The following section scrutinizes the policies applied by these actors, and their implications for democracy. The final section tries to envisage a democratic politics suitable for the world of viruses, super-bugs, climate change, poverty and hyper-connectivity.

The deepening economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has elicited extensive policy responses, but also raises daunting challenges for global governance. This policy-oriented article explores the new challenges for multilateralism, assesses efforts to coordinate these policy responses, and considers likely outcomes.

The deep recession expected as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will leave both governments and private-sector companies with a greatly increased debt burden. That will have severe consequences for the financial system. Banks will suffer large-scale defaults on business and personal lending. To work off the debt overhang, interest rates may be held down by central banks for a long period. Inflation may rise, which would deflate the real value of debt, but inflationary pressures are currently weak. Financial repression will add to the pressures on banks and other financial institutions. Major banks enter the crisis period with high capital ratios, but expected losses on loan portfolios will put some under strain. Less strongly capitalized new entrants may suffer disproportionately. Other likely changes are more rapid growth in digital financial services and a decline in cash usage. Central banks will probably issue their own digital currencies, which will make maintaining negative interest rates more achievable. At the same time, the international financial system will be put under strain by global tensions generated by the crisis. In this complex environment, it will be crucial for governments, central banks, and the banking system to collaborate closely and for the European Union to bolster the eurozone with long-planned but long-delayed reforms, in particular to promote a capital markets union that could relieve pressure on banks’ balance sheets.

The dramatic interventions to fight the coronavirus pandemic undertaken by many governments all around the globe are unique since the Second World War. They massively restrict economic, civil society, cultural, and personal freedoms. So far the population has been willing to cooperate. In view of the huge current and future costs, it is crucial that citizens remain confident that there are good reasons for the measures. This trust is endangered if the population is unable to understand crucial aspects, and therefore insecurity grows. The costs to be borne vary greatly: permanent employees or civil servants are far less affected than restaurant operators, hairdressers, self-employed cultural workers, and most shop owners. Their confidence is based essentially on how well the following questions are answered. What guidance can the social sciences offer?

There are times in history when the consensus about our economic system breaks down. It happened after the Long Depression, also known as the Great Depression of the 19th century, and again in the 20th century around the Great Depression of 1929-1933, as well as after the Great Recession of 2008-2009 that followed the global financial crisis. The Covid-19 great crash, which carries the risk of a deep downturn, has led governments to take extraordinary measures in all areas of our lives. This has further fuelled the need to discuss how to rebuild the consensus about the most appropriate economic system for the 21st century as the great question of our time. This is a reflection piece invited for the Dahrendorf Symposium.