Thomas Carothers, Mitchell Ash & Eva Nowotny: DEMOCRACY UNDER THREAT - DONALD TRUMP AND WORLD POLITICS?

Raimund Löw in conversation with Thomas Carothers, Mitchell Ash
and Eva Nowotny





DEMOCRACY UNDER THREAT - DONALD TRUMP AND WORLD
POLITICS?





In the second presidency of Donald Trump an attack against the
rule of law in the United States has begun. The White House has
challenged or undercut independent institutions of the
government, the liberal media and the universities. The United
States have greatly reduced its support of democracy on the
international level. Vice-president JD Vance and Secretary Marco
Rubio have supported parties and politicians from the far right
in Europe and elsewhere. How far will the pressure on democracy
in the United States under Donald Trump go? How strong is the
resistance of the democratic institutions and civil society in
the US? What are the consequences for democracy in the world?





A discussion between democratization expert Thomas Carothers
(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC),
historian Mitchell Ash (University of Vienna) and former Austrian
Ambassador to the USA Eva Nowotny, moderated by journalist
Raimund Löw


 


Thomas Carothers is a leading authority on
comparative democratization and international support for
democracy, human rights, governance, the rule of law, and civil
society. He is the author or editor of critically acclaimed books
and articles in prominent journals, including most recently,
Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political
Polarization (Brookings Press, 2019, co-edited with Andrew
O’Donohue). He has been a visiting faculty member at the Central
European University, Nuffield College, Oxford University, and
Johns Hopkins SAIS.





Mitchell G. Ash is Professor Emeritus of
Modern History at the University of Vienna, Austria.  He is
a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Ash is
author or editor of 20 books and 200 articles and review essays
with focus on the social, cultural and political relations of the
sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since 2016 he has
published commentaries and participated in media discussions on
recent American politics, most recently “Die USA auf dem Weg zu
einer Demokratur?” (in Der Standard, 29. Jänner
2025. https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000254882/die-usa-auf-dem-weg-zu-einer-demokratur).





Eva Nowotny is Vicepresident of the Kreisky
Forum. She had been Austrian Ambassador to France, the United
Kingdom and the United States of America. She had served as
Foreign Policy Advisor at the Office of the Federal Chancellor
and as head of the Directorate-General for Integration and
Economic Policy at the Foreign Ministry. Eva Nowotny has chaired
the University Board of the University of Vienna.





Raimund Löw, journalist and historian, is editor
of the podcast Falter Radio. He has been foreign correspondent
for Austrian Radio and Television ORF in Washington DC, Beijing,
Brussels and Moscow. He is author and coautor of several books on
international affairs including Welt in Bewegung (2022),
Weltmacht China (2018)