According to Ivan Krastev, the European Union was built on the basis of fear of the past. Today, Europe fears the future. This is the core of our crisis: democracy only works as long as the future is seen as open and malleable, not as a threat. Where this belief fades, democracy loses its most invisible but crucial institution.
The Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, Director of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, is one of the most influential political thinkers in Europe. In his essays (most recently: "Is It Tomorrow Yet?"), he analyzes the decline of democracy and global shifts in power.
He opens phil.COLOGNE with the crucial question: How do democracies learn to re-inhabit the future? Translator: Norbert Heikamp, moderator: Wolfram Eilenberger