After the Democratic Age: Europe in the Twenty-First Century, With Martin Conway

In the last decade, there has been much talk of a “crisis” of democracy in Europe. The ascendancy of a particular version of democracy in Western Europe after 1945, which was then extended after 1989 to Central and Eastern Europe, is now widely felt to be threatened by the various forces of populism, the resurgence of authoritarian political models, and the wider loss of confidence prompted by globalisation, economic crisis, and the impact of events on the frontiers of Europe, most notably the war in Ukraine. In this lecture, Conway will seek to bring a historical perspective to a debate that is often approached on overly presentist terms. In particular, his lecture will seek to examine how far the real change is one in the contours of democracy rather than its collapse.

Martin Conway is Professor of Contemporary European History, and also currently the Chair of the Board of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford. He has written widely on a number of themes of European history of the mid- and later twentieth century. His doctoral work was on Belgium during the Second World War, which was published as Collaboration in Belgium. Léon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement 1940–44 (Yale University Press, 1993), and also in Dutch and French language editions. He has subsequently written books on Catholic politics, on Political Legitimacy, and on Europeanization. His most recent book was Western Europe’s Democratic Age 1945-68 (Princeton University Press, 2020). He is currently working on a study of Male Citizenship in Twentieth-Century Europe, and is one of the editors of a new book series, European Histories of the Present, from Cambridge University Press which looks to develop an agenda for the history of Europe in the twenty-first century.

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