Events | The Virtue and Limits of Political Compromise in Liberal Democracies - A Workshop
Thomas Mann House Los Angeles | November 21, 2024 – November 22, 2024
Thomas Mann House | November 21-22, 2024
Together with Thomas Mann Fellows Pola Lehmann and Johannes Gerschewski, the Thomas Mann House is hosting a workshop on the value of political compromise in democracy from a transatlantic perspective with experts from political science and activism.
The workshop brings together political scientists and political activists to discuss the ambivalence of political compromise in times of increasing polarization. The focus lies on different aspects of political compromise for liberal democracies:
(1) What are the preconditions for political compromise?
(2) What can be gained from compromise, but also what are the limits of compromise?
(3) And finally, how can institutions and individuals create an environment that is conducive to compromise?
Program
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Why and when should we engage in compromise?
The first session clarifies what a political compromise is, what the main features of a compromise look like, and why the ability to compromise might (or might not) lie at the heart of liberal democracies. In heterogeneous and pluralistic societies, compromise is not only a necessary feature of political life, but it can be argued that the acceptance of political rivals as having legitimate interests leads to a self-reinforcing dynamic that underpins democratic processes.
Friday, November 22, 2024
When should we not engage in compromise?
The second session looks at the limits of compromise, exploring the proverbial “rotten” compromise to ask when we should shy away from forging compromises. This includes reflections on the question of freedom of speech, and to what extent populism impedes our ability to find compromise.
How do the United States and Germany deal with compromise and polarization?
The third session explores the differing way in which political compromise is built into the different political systems of the United States and Germany, comparing two different ways these political systems react and maybe even produce societal polarization.
How to create a conducive environment for political compromise?
The last session discusses what conducive environments could look like that foster political compromise. What makes political compromise more likely? What hinders it?
Attendance
Attendance by invitation only.
Participants
Sarah E. Anderson is a Professor and Acting Dean at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She studies how the public and politics influences policy. In her 2020 book Rejecting Compromise: Legislators’ Fear of Primary Voters, she focuses on how the public drives inequity and inefficiency in agencies’ wildfire prevention and why legislators reject compromise. In her research, teaching, and service, she works with students, staff, faculty, communities, and leaders to overcome social and political barriers to solving environmental problems and to work toward equity in the environmental field.
Pola Lehmann is a research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and co-director of the Manifesto Project. She studied administrative sciences at the Universities of Potsdam and Copenhagen. Her research focuses on democracy and political representation, political parties and elections, and machine learning. In her dissertation, which won the Leibniz Dissertation Award in 2021, she investigated political representation and compromise in the German Bundestag.
Alexandra Lieben is the Deputy Director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and an affiliated faculty member of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the UCLA School of Law. A certified mediator, she teaches constructive communication, alternative dispute resolution, public dialogue, cultural competency, international conflict resolution, and community and economic development to undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA.
Johannes Gerschewski is a research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and coordinates the work of the Theory Network at the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS).” He has published in academic journals including American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. His book on The Two Logics of Autocratic Rule was published in April 2023 by Cambridge University Press.
Natalie M. Godinez is an educator and artist raised in Tijuana, México. Godinez has collaborated with AMBOS since 2017, performing artist interventions, leading education projects, and coordinating humanitarian aid efforts. Currently, she is the Community Engagement & Youth Programs Manager at Self Help Graphics and Art, working on advocacy, youth programming, and cultural organizing. In her personal art practice, she explores memories, identity, and relationships to places and language through textiles, printmaking, and collaboration. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Applied Design from San Diego State University.
Allison Lee serves as PEN America’s Los Angeles Director. She was the Chief Development Officer for TIME’S UP, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting gender equity and ending sexual violence in the workplace. She has previously served as Vice President of External Affairs at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, where she worked, among other things, to launch their Rapid Response Family Immigration Project and Transgender Advocacy Program. Prior to that, Allison served for eight years as the founding Executive Director of American Jewish World Service – Southern California. Allison received her B.A. in Political Science and American Studies from Tufts University.
Jonathan Parfrey is the founder and Executive Director of Climate Resolve, and has served as a commissioner at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (2008-2013). Parfrey is a member of the LA28 Olympics and Paralympic Games Sustainability Working Group. He is a founder and board member of CicLAvia, the popular street event, as well as a founder of the statewide Alliance of Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation. He served as director of the GREEN LA Coalition (2007-2011). Prior to that, he founded and directed the Orange County Catholic Worker (1987-1993). He was appointed to Governor Schwarzenegger’s Environmental Policy Team in 2003.
Danielle M. Thomsen is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, with a focus on American politics, Congress, elections, campaign finance, and gender and politics. Thomsen’s first book Opting Out of Congress: Partisan Polarization and the Decline of Moderate Candidates was published in 2017, and her second publication The Money Signal: How Fundraising Matters in American Politics is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press in Spring 2025. Her research has been published in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, among others.
Kurt Weyland is Professor of Government and Mike Hogg Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Based on research conducted in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, and Venezuela, he has published many journal articles and book chapters, as well as seven books, most recently Assault on Democracy: Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism during the Interwar Years (Cambridge, 2021); and Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat (Cambridge, 2024).
Thomas Aujero Small is the CEO of Culver City Forward, Chair of LA METRO Sustainability Council and member of the Mobility Committee of the Urban Land Institute Los Angeles. He served as Mayor of Culver City from 2018-2019, during his four-year term as a Culver City Council Member (2016-2020). He is also on the Transportation Policy Committee of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). On the Culver City Council, he served on several Subcommittees, including: the General Plan Update; Economic Development; Mobility, Traffic and Parking; Financial Planning and Budget; and the Ballona Creek Revitalization Task Force.
