How can mainstream parties best fight populism? Drawing lessons for Germany by pooling expertise

Drawing lessons for Germany by pooling expertise - How can mainstream parties best fight populism?

The workshop aims to examine the effectiveness, advantages and disadvantages of different strategies for fighting populism by pooling the expertise of specialists from academia, politics, and journalism. Developing a more nuanced understanding of these strategies is critical – especially in light of the upcoming elections of the European Parliament and several German state parliaments. To that end, our workshop will feature scholars, mainly economists and political scientists, alongside policymakers and journalists to present cutting-edge academic research with policy relevance and discuss how these insights can be put into practice.

Day 1

Session I: Institutional and legal responses (14:30 – 15:40)

Panel and plenary discussion on “Putting defensive democracy into practice” with Sebastian Pittelkow (NDR) and Justus von Daniels (Correctiv), moderated by Franziska Klemenz (Table.Media).

Session II: How to deal with populists during electoral campaigns (16:10 – 17:30)

Presentations by Heike Klüver (Humboldt University), Vicente Valentim (Oxford University), and Christoph Trebesch (Kiel Institute).

Day 2

Session III: Programmatic responses – Opportunities and constraints (09:00 – 10:50)

Online keynote and Q&A with Karin Prien (Minister of Education, Science, Research and Culture of the Land Schleswig-Holstein, Deputy State Chairwoman of the CDU Schleswig-Holstein); followed by presentations by Tommaso Nannicini (Florence School, EUI), Werner Krause (Potsdam University) and Laurenz Günther (Bocconi University).

Session IV: Towards anti-populist and future-proof policy platforms (11:20 – 12:40)

Keynote by Catherine de Vries (Bocconi University) on Fighting far-right political entrepreneurs; followed by a panel discussion on “How to stop dancing to the far right’s tune – programmatically and rhetorically?”  with her, Paulina Fröhlich (Progressives Zentrum) and Mark Schieritz (Zeit), moderated by Moritz Schularick.

Session V: Policy responses – Opportunities and constraints (13:10 – 14:30)

Presentations by Théo Konc (Technical University Berlin) and Jacob Edenhofer (Oxford University), Evelyne Hübscher (CEU), and Robert Gold (Kiel Institute).

The workshop will take place at the new Berlin office of the Kiel Institute. If you are interested in participating, please contact [email protected]