IPR Event: The Future as a Political Idea
5 February @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Democracy is future-oriented and self-correcting: today’s problems can be solved, we are told, in tomorrow’s elections. But the biggest issues facing the modern world – from climate collapse and pandemics to recession and world war – each apparently bring us to the edge of the irreversible. What happens to democracy when the future seems no longer open?
Join University of Bath for a free event with Jonathan White as he explores how politics has long been directed by shifting visions of the future, from the birth of ideologies in the nineteenth century to Cold War secrecy and the excesses of the neoliberal age.
Drawing on insights from his latest book, In the Long Run, he argues that a political commitment to the long-term may be the best way to safeguard democracy.
He will be in conversation with Peter Allen, Professor of Politics at the University of Bath. There will be time for audience questions.
