Susanne Schröter

Rarely has the West seemed so united as at the beginning of the Ukraine war. The values of freedom and democracy had to be defended against an autocratic system. But this supposed unity quickly revealed the first fractures, which concealed a profound, structural problem. How can economic constraints be reconciled with political goals? How much are the West’s own ideals worth?

In view of the recent conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Mali, as well as the lack of plan on the part of Western governments to deal with migration movements, Islamism, and cancel culture, Susanne Schröter diagnoses a West caught between hubris and self-hatred, which incessantly invokes the values of democracy, but at the same time betrays them whenever it matters. Is the West on its way to losing its own credibility in domestic and foreign policy?

Susanne Schröter is Professor of Ethnology at the University of Frankfurt and Director of the Frankfurt Research Center Global Islam (FFGI).

In the series Democracy