How can we hold the powerful to account and advance democracy in an age of inequality and uncertainty?
Join us for a thought-provoking evening with Erica Benner, political philosopher and author of Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power (2024).
Professor Benner will explore democracy's uneasy relationship with power and inequality, focusing on the challenges of concentrated wealth, elite power, and global hegemony. Drawing connections to pressing current events—including debates sparked by the US election and recent global developments—she examines how self-governing societies throughout history, from Ancient Greece to Renaissance Florence, have navigated struggles for greater democratic power.
This timely discussion invites us to reflect on the enduring value of democracy and the roles we all must play in shaping its future.
Meet our speaker and chair
Erica Benner is a political philosopher and historian of ideas. Born in Tokyo, she grew up in Japan and the UK. After earning her D.Phil from Oxford, she taught at Warsaw University and the Polish Academy of Sciences, Oxford University, and LSE. Erica currently teaches at the Hertie School for Governance in Berlin and at LSE Ideas. Her new book, Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power came out in 2024 and is a Financial Times pick for What to Read in 2024.
Anne Phillips is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Government, having previosuly held the position of Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. She joined LSE in 1999 as Professor of Gender Theory, and was Director of the Gender Institute until September 2004. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003 and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2013.
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