GHIL Joint Lecture

Julia Angster

‘Post-Democracy’?

Globalization, Democracy, and the Nation State in Germany after 1990

18 November 2024

(0:42 h)

GHIL Joint Lecture

Julia Angster

‘Post-Democracy’?
Globalization, Democracy, and the Nation State in Germany after 1990

In co-operation with the Modern German History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research (IHR)

Is ‘globalization’ a threat to democracy? From the 1990s to the late 2010s, social scientists, economists, and historians in Western countries thought so. They worried about a loss of national sovereignty and agency, about national identity, and most of all about liberal democracy, which was based upon the national framing of state and society. This discourse was most prominent in post-unification Germany. The lecture will look at perceptions of ‘globalization’ and analyse the underlying assumptions about democracy and statehood. It argues that instead of a crisis of democracy, this was a crisis of national patterns of political thought dating back to the nineteenth century.

Julia Angster is Professor of Modern History at the University of Mannheim. Her fields of research include German contemporary history, transatlantic relations, the British Empire, and international relations. She studied at the University of Tübingen and St. John’s College, Oxford and completed her doctorate and habilitation at the University of Tübingen. From 2010 to 2012 she was professor of British and North American History at the University of Kassel.

Don't miss the accompanying interview: Is globalization a threat to democracy? In this podcast interview, PR Officer Kim König is joined by Julia Angster, professor of modern history at the University of Mannheim, to discuss the research behind her GHIL Lecture on globalization, democracy and the nation state in Germany after 1990. They explore the impact of globalization and neoliberalism on the nation state and national identity, the current state of liberal democracy and future directions for historiography beyond the national frame.