Bonnie Honig is one of the world’s foremost democratic theorists. Arnon Grunberg will engage in conversation with Honig about, among other topics, Hannah Arendt, shock politics, and democracy in disrepair.

Bonnie Honig embodies the public intellectual like few others. With her funny and fine-edged essays analyzing Trump’s shock politics, the significance of Stranger Things’ popularity, and feminist resources for defending democracy. At the same time, she is one of the world’s foremost democratic theorists, combining sources as diverse as Nietzsche, Arendt, Rousseau, Lars von Trier, 12 Angry Men, Antigone and gothic romance novels in her writings on democracy.

One of the major themes of her work is how contestation, rather than consensus, should be central in a democracy. She is a founding thinker of the agonistic democratic movement, driving its inspiration from the ancient Greek culture’s emphasis on the agon, for struggle. In recent work she explores how ‘public things’, like education, national parks and healthcare, are a precondition for democracy – but are often under pressure from privatization and neoliberalism.

Tonight, Honig enters into conversation with Arnon Grunberg. They will talk about public things, emergency and shock politics, her feminist interpretations of Hannah Arendt and democracy in disrepair. Bastiaan Rijpkema, who wrote an introduction to the first Dutch translation of one of Honig’s works: Publieke dingen, will introduce the evening.

The day after the event, Honig will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University, nominated by Leiden Law School. Bonnie Honig in conversation with Arnon Grunberg at De Balie also marks of the publication of the first Dutch translation of Honigs work: Publieke dingen.

In several democratic elections last year, radical right-wing populist movements have gained momentum, capturing the votes of working-class and minority communities. What has attracted voters to these political parties? In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS-KNAW), the Van Leer Institute and the Max-Weber-Institute-for-Sociology, De Balie organizes an event on the appeal of the populist right-wing movement.

In the months after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, Democrats are asking themselves the uncomfortable question: how did we lose the working class vote? Republicans gained strong support from white workers in labor unions without a college degree, and also made significant gains among non-white Americans with similar education levels. Many left-leaning progressive political movements elsewhere, including in the Netherlands, are now engaged in a similar process of soul-searching as the radical right gains ground internationally. 

With cultural sociologists Michèle Lamont (Harvard University), Nissim Mizrachi (Tel Aviv University, Van Leer Institute), and Elisabeth Jane Topkara (Heidelberg University), we explore how marginalization, stigma, and neoliberal society can turn people toward populist right-wing political parties. 

What role does the need for belonging play in this electoral shift to the radical right?  And what strategies can minority groups use to counter stigmatization in a polarized society?