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May 27th, 2025, 7 – 8.30 pm
House of European History, Rue Belliard/straat 135, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

The House of European History is collaborating with VICCA and invites you to an academic discussion and literary reading on this burning issue of our times. The starting point will be the recently published book “Authoritarian Trends and Parliamentary Democracy in Europe”, co-edited by Oliver Rathkolb and Sybille Steinbacher.

The book is published by Wallstein publishers (Göttingen) and supported by the Vienna Institute for Cultural and Contemporary History and Arts (VICCA), with financial contributions by the Alfred Landecker Foundation, the Fritz Bauer Institute, the University Frankfurt/Main, the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, the City of Vienna (MA7), the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, and the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria. It includes contributions by renowned scholars and writers on how to raise democratic awareness and reduce the trend towards an authoritarian age – an age that the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf predicted in the 1990s as a consequence of the social crises of neoliberal turbo-globalization.

During the roundtable, experts will discuss models and strategies developed to tackle the growing dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy that came out as the key finding of the study, commissioned by the University of Vienna in eight European countries.

The language of the event is English. Participation is free.

Speakers

Nathalie Brack is currently Professor in Political science, researcher at the Cevipol, co-Editor of the Journal of European Integration and Member of the Steering Committee of the ECPR Standing group on the European Union. She works on the European Parliament, radical parties, Euroscepticism and the challenges to liberal democracy. 

Edit Innotai is a senior fellow and board member of the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy (CEID), an independent think tank based in Budapest. She has a PhD in international relations and a background in journalism, having worked as a Berlin correspondent and foreign editor for the major daily Népszabadság. She currently works for German public broadcaster ARD in Budapest and is a regular contributor to regional news site Balkan Insight.

Oliver Rathkolb is a former Head of Department and Professor emeritus at the Department of Contemporary History, University of  Vienna (Austria), founding director of the Vienna Institute of Cultural and Contemporary History and Arts (VICCA) and Chairperson, Academic  Committee, House of European History, Brussels. As a visiting professor he taught at the University of Chicago and was Schumpeter-Professor at Harvard University. Prof. Rathkolb is author of several books focusing on contemporary history as well as editor and co-editor of several studies concerning interdisciplinary questions of contemporary history, authoritarianism and democracy,  music history and communications & media history. He is the managing  editor of the journal “Zeitgeschichte” (Contemporary History).

Sybille Steinbacher has been Director of the Fritz Bauer Institute and Professor of the History and Impact of the Holocaust at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. From 2010 to 2017, she served as Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. She studied history and political science in Munich. With a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, she carried out research at Harvard University. She was the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. She is chairwoman of the Scientific Board of Trustees of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation.

Moderator

Steven Van Hecke

Actors

Seán McDonagh, born in Hamburg in 1982, studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. During his studies, he performed at the Thalia Theater, the Junges Schauspielhaus and Kampnagel Hamburg. From 2007 to 2009, he was engaged at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden and then moved to the Schauspielhaus Zürich, where he was a member of the ensemble from 2009 to 2013. From 2013-2024 he was a permanent member of the ensemble at Schauspiel Köln. Seán McDonagh is a permanent member of the BURG ensemble since the 2024/25 season.

Sylvie Rohrer, born in Bern in 1968, attended the acting academy in Zurich. In 1995 she was named “Best Young Actress” by the magazine Theater heute, in 1996 she received the Boy Gobert Prize and in the same year was again voted “Best Young Actress”. Sylvie Rohrer has been a member of the BURG ensemble since 1999. In 2007 she was awarded the Nestroy Theater Prize in the “Best Actress” category. Guest engagements have taken her to the Salzburg Festival, the Berliner Ensemble and the Zürcher Schauspielhaus. Sylvie Rohrer can also be seen in various film and television roles.