Democracy, Liberalism and the Anglosphere

James Allan will speak on the three recent elections in the Anglosphere. He will argue that you can understand all three through the prism of the widespread battle between illiberal democracy, on the one hand, and undemocratic liberalism on the other. Liberalism or progressivism favors hefty dollops of global governance and judicial oversight.  Here you have the Paris Accords and Net Zero, the WHO, the ECHR, broad-based understandings of international law.  And the attitude here is that the product of these elite organizations is often more worthy and valuable than what flows from majoritarian democracy that favors majority rule and national sovereignty. So, this is the struggle between insiders vs outsiders, anywhere types v somewhere types, elites v populists.  It is through that prism that Allan will explain the recent elections in Canada, Britain and Australia – with a few digressions about the US.

Join us to find the answers to questions such as:

• How the ultimate Davos Man, Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney, won the recent election?  
• What is happening to conservatives in Australia? 
• Are we soon to see the end of the democratic world’s oldest political party, the UK Conservative Party?

The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion, including:

• James Allan, Garrick Professor of Law, University of Queensland
• Péter Tamás Baranyi, Director for Strategy, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs

The discussion will be moderated by: Gergely Dobozi, Head of Operations, Danube Institute.

Biography

James Allan holds the oldest named chair at the University of Queensland where he is the Garrick Professor of Law. He is a native born Canadian who practised law at a large firm in Toronto and then at the Bar in London before moving to teach law in Hong Kong, New Zealand and then Australia.  He has had sabbaticals at the Cornell Law School and the University of San Diego School of Law in the US, at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Dalhousie Law School in Canada (where he was the Bertha Wilson Visiting Professor of Human Rights), and at King’s College Law School in London, England.

Allan has published widely in the areas of constitutional law, legal philosophy and bill of rights scepticism.  His books include The Age of Foolishness: A Doubter’s Guide to Constitutionalism in a Modern Democracy (Academica Press, 2022), A Principled Constitution? Four Skeptical Perspectives (Lexington Books, 2022, co-written with Larry Alexander, Steven Smith and Maimon Schwarzschild), Democracy in Decline (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014) and (as co-editor and one contributor) Keeping Australia Right (Connor Court, 2020).  Allan also writes regularly for weeklies and monthlies including being a regular contributor to The Spectator Australia, Quadrant and Britain’s Daily Sceptic as well as being a sometime contributor to The Australian, the US’s Law & Liberty and Britain’s The Conservative Woman.  Allan, an open opponent of lockdowns from day one, contributed a chapter to the Amazon #1 bestseller Canary In a (Post) Covid World. As a majoritarian democrat he was absolutely delighted by the Brexit vote.  And as an openly conservative law professor he has spent all of his working life in orthodox left institutions. (He includes not just his 35 years of life in university law schools but his four in big law firms.)

Details

Date&Time: June 30, Monday, 2025, 5:30pm
On-site registration: 5:00pm
Venue: Theater, Lónyay-Hatvany Villa, 1 Csónak Street, 1015 Budapest
(Entrance: Aranybástya Restaurant)
Language: English

Participation is free; however, due to limited seating, pre-registration is required by clicking the button below.