In the beginning of June I joint a group of young professionals that were invited by the Hertie Foundation Alumni Club (also known as Hertoe Fellows and Friends) to discuss European Politics and current political developments in Europe with the Dutch ambassador Monique van Daalen.
The lively debate at the beautiful residency of the ambassador in Dahlem was accompanied by great dutch food and nice talks in between the open debate.
The opening remarks by Ms van Daalen were highliting the dutch stance on current issies within the debate sorrounding the European internal crisis management and towards how to approach current international crisis and challenges from a common european perspective. She emphasized the common interests of germany and the netherlands especially on Foreign Policy issues but also with relation to the European Unions future structure and profile.
After a second interesting input from Maurits Meijer a PhD student at the Hertie School of Governance working on populism in right wing and left wing parties in Europe and how they influence the positions of center parties on policy issues the debate centered around the European Union. The pariticipants highlighted that for many people living in the EU the community has always been primarily an economic one to the benefit of all members. 
The fact that the political elite did not invest enough time, efforts and resources into explaining the benefits of the community for every single citizen was mentioned. But also more ciritical statements were raised. The fact that the Union has been build primarily for economic collaboration and benefit was largely agreed upon. In light of this some of the participants argued for a more social Europe that would also take the demands of its citizens into account and not only regulate the markets and flow of goods and work.
All in all it was an inspiring evening in the embassy of my second home.

In the beginning of April this year I was involved in an international conference organized jointly by the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Science (BBAW) and the Studienkolleg zu Berlin. The conference was supported by the Fritz-Thyssen foundation and the Allianz Kulturstiftung. The bold headline was: “Understandings & meanings of democracy in Europe and the World”. We had some interesting speakers and outstanding scholars participating in this open doors event. The program of the event can be found here.

I was involved in Co-moderating the panel on meanings of democracy on a global scale with my friend & colleague Niklas Kossow. Our podium debate was complemented by Xiabo Lu (Columbia University) and Nora Lafi (center for the modern orient) and Sina Birkholz (Free University Berlin).

The discussion touched upon topics such as the universality of democracy as a normative order and source of legitimacy, justice, economic development, civil society and media pluralism.

The interesting debate on the podium was focused on perspectives from the Arab World and China. Here you can find the link to the audio file of the discussion (last link).

Besides the interesting podium debate I was also involved in organization a workshop on understandings of democracy in the Arab World with my colleague Laura Führer from the Free University Berlin and Thomas Claes from the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation. In the workshop we covered the contestation during the Arab Uprisings and the demands of the protesters such as freedom, justice, an end to corruption and democracy. We discussed varieties of understandings of democracy across the Arab World focusing on Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. We highlighted the differences between these cases and came to the conclusion that the understandings of democracy –even within the seemingly homogeneous bloc of the Arab World, or even within the single countries– are very diverging. In short, there is no such thing as a common Arab understanding of democracy.

All in all the conference was very interesting and enabled a fruitful exchange between established and young academics, journalists and the interested public in Berlin. Overall despite the references to democracy by all actors across all regions the diversity of understandings and meanings of democracy was the central outcome of the conference.

I herewith also want to thank the organizers and my collegues for their efforts and participation in planning and contributing to the success of the event.