What Undermines Democracy

Nobel laureate Prof. James A. Robinson (Harvard University) was the keynote lecture at the 2025 Annual Research Night of the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. He delivered a thought-provoking speech on the ideational foundations of democracy. Drawing on his recent work with Daron Acemoglu, Robinson argued that democracy’s strength – and its current crisis – cannot be understood purely in economic terms. At the heart of today’s democratic backsliding, he said, lies a normative crisis: the weakening of the ideas and justifications that once underpinned democratic institutions. "Democracy is not only about material incentives", he noted. "It is also a normative project, an idea that must be renewed." #pioneeringeconomics #Democracy #DemocraticBacksliding