Torben Lütjen: America’s Cold Civil War — A European Perspective on America’s Extreme Polarization
Monday, June 8, 2020
12-1:30 pm Eastern Time (US)
Zoom Webinar
You can watch a recording of the complete event by clicking the button above.
About the Event
For much of the 20th century, the United States, with its moderate political culture, was the antithesis to ideologically fractured Europe. In fact, many Europeans looked with envy to the "new world," which seemed to have escaped the political extremes — such as communism or fascism — even in the darkest moments of the interwar period. In a world of uncertainty, the U.S. was considered the impregnable and indispensable bastion of liberal democracy.
Today, however, it is America that has become the epicenter of a new global wave of political polarization. From a uniquely European perspective, Torben Lütjen wonders what has happened to the promised land of pragmatism. What can Europeans learn from the toxic polarization that has torn the country apart? Is the fracturing of America a signal for things to come in Europe? Then again, to switch the perspective: Is there anything that Americans, fearing for the survival of their democracy in the age of Donald Trump, can learn from the lessons of the European past?
About the Speaker
Torben Lütjen currently teaches Comparative Politics at Universität Kiel, Germany. Until this year, he was DAAD Visiting Associate Professor for European Studies and Political Science, through a joint appointment of the Max Kade Center for German and European Studies and Vanderbilt’s Department of Political Science. Before coming to Vanderbilt, he was the acting director of the Institute for Democracy Research at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
From 2009-15, he headed a research group at the University of Düsseldorf that explored the mechanisms behind different levels of ideological polarization in Western democracies, funded by a Schumpeter-Fellowship of the Volkswagen-Foundation. Most of his work is located on the intersection between political science and contemporary history and he is particularly interested in political parties, polarization and democracy.
Recently, Lütjen wrote a book about the connection between residential segregation and polarization in two “landslide counties” in Wisconsin ("Die Politik der Echokammer. Wisconsin und die ideologische Polarisierung der USA," 2016) and another one on the evolution of the Republican Party and American conservatism after 1945 ("Partei der Extreme: Die Republikaner. Über die Implosion des amerikanischen Konservativismus," 2016). He also authored a biography of Frank Walter Steinmeier, the former German Foreign Minister and now President of Germany. In addition, Lütjen writes frequently for major German newspapers and weeklies such as Die Zeit, FAZ, taz, or Der Spiegel.
Lütjen is currently starting a new research project on the history and sociology of political conversions in the age of ideology: radical ideological transformations (from left to right or vice versa) of intellectuals and political elites, from the early nineteenth century to the renegades of the generation of 1968.
During his time at Vanderbilt, Torben taught the following courses: The Rise of Right-Wing Populist Parties in Advanced Democracies, West European Politics, Social Movements, Ideological polarization in Historical and Comparative Perspective, and The Idea of Europe.