THE BERLIN JOURNAL A Magazine from the American Academy in Berlin Number Thirty-Three Fall 2019 How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt THe FuTure oF work in Germany by Laura D’Andrea Tyson FicTion by Adam Ehrlich Sachs, Angela Flournoy, and Paul La Farge THe empaTHic wiT oF HeinricH Heine by Azade Seyhan arTisT porTFolio Renée Green THe HisTory oF THe posTcarD by Liliane Weissberg We are deeply grateful to STEFAN VON HOLTZBRINCK for his generous support of this issue of the Berlin Journal. CONTENTS focus features notebook 4 34 80 6 How Democracies Die 36 WisH you were Here! 82 In praise oF DeliberaTive by Steven Levitsky and by Liliane Weissberg Democracy Daniel Ziblatt 42 ARTisT porTFolio 83 THe ricHarD c. Holbrooke 10 In THe reD Renée Green FellowsHip by Steven Klein 52 EmpaTHic wiT 84 THe 2018 max beckmann 14 ZukunFTsmusik by Azade Seyhan DisTinGuisHeD visiTor by Laura D’Andrea Tyson 55 Impossible proximiTy 84 Alumni seminar 22 THe orGans oF sense by Tatyana Gershkovich aT StanForD by Adam Ehrlich Sachs 58 WriTinG GeneraTions 86 Weiss anD cHipperFielD 28 LanD oF Darkness by Veronika Fuechtner 86 StreeT smarT by Suki Kim 62 THe miss april Houses 87 PoliTics anD Brötchen by Angela Flournoy 87 Welcome aboarD 66 All incluDeD by Paul La Farge 88 ProFiles in scHolarsHip 70 THe anDrew w. mellon worksHop 90 Book reviews Rosalind C. Morris, by Adam Ross and Kenny Fries Natacha Nsabimana, Miriam Ticktin, 96 Alumni books and Yvette Christiansë 97 SupporTers anD Donors CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor professor in the School of Architec- at Carnegie Mellon University. a 2018–20 Provost’s Postdoctoral of the Science of Government at ture and Planning at MIT; she is the Veronika Fuechtner is a spring Fellow at the University of Chicago. Harvard University and the fall fall 2019 Ellen Maria Gorrissen 2020 Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow Miriam Ticktin is an associate 2019 Axel Springer Fellow. Steven Fellow. Writer Suki Kim is the and an associate professor of professor of anthropology at The Levitsky is a professor of govern- Holtzbrinck Fellow in fall German at Dartmouth College. New School for Social Research. ment at Harvard University. Fall 2019. Spring 2020 Anna-Maria Writer Angela Flournoy is a fall Adam Ross is the editor of the 2019 Daimler Fellow Steven Klein is Kellen Fellow Liliane Weissberg is 2019 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Sewanee Review; he was the Mary an assistant professor of political Christopher H. Browne Distin- Fellow in Fiction. Writer Paul Ellen von der Heyden Fellow in science at the University of Florida. guished Professor in the Arts and La Farge is the spring 2020 Fiction in 2014. Writer Kenny Fries Laura D’Andrea Tyson, the fall 2019 Sciences at the University of Holtzbrinck Fellow. Rosalind teaches in the MFA Creative Writ- Richard C. Holbrooke Fellow, is Pennsylvania. Azade Seyhan, the Morris, a professor of anthropol- ing Program at Goddard College. Distinguished Professor of the fall 2019 John P. Birkelund Fellow ogy at Columbia University, was George Packer, a staff writer at Graduate School at the Hass School in the Humanities, is a professor the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon The Atlantic, was the fall 2009 Axel of Business at the University of of humanities and German at Fellow in the Humanities, in fall Springer Fellow and spring 2014 California, Berkeley. Writer Adam Bryn Mawr College. Fall 2019 2018. Yvette Christiansë is a Holtzbrinck Fellow. Ehrlich Sachs is a fall 2019 Mary Nina Maria Gorrissen Fellow professor of Africana studies and Ellen von der Heyden Fellow in Tatyana Gershkovich is an assis- English literature at Barnard Fiction. Artist Renée Green is a tant professor of Russian studies College. Natacha Nsabimana is THe berlin journal THe american acaDemy French, Hans-Michael Giesen, supporT in berlin C. Boyden Gray, Vartan Gregorian, Number Thirty-Three, Andrew S. Gundlach, Florian The Academy is funded primarily by Fall 2019 TrusTee-in-resiDence Henckel von Donnersmarck, Stefan private, tax-deductible donations. 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Kornblum Academy in Berlin FFC Account Number: TrusTees 876-043080-491 Klaus Biesenbach, Manfred The American Academy in Berlin is a 501(c)(3) Bischoff, Leon Botstein, Martin organization under US tax law. Its latest Brand, Stephen B. Burbank, Gahl annual financial report may be obtained by Hodges Burt, Gerhard Casper, writing to the American Academy in Berlin, Mathias Döpfner, Marina Kellen 14 East 60th Street, Suite 604, New York, NY 10022 or the Charities Bureau, 28 Liberty Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10005. EDITOR’S NOTE Democracy‘s Reminders THree DecaDes aGo this fall, a political earthquake rocked and think democratically “in the living relations of person the barrier that had divided Europe and the city of Berlin to person,” as John Dewey wrote—when citizens deliber- for nearly five decades. The so-called Autumn of Nations ately choose self-governance. This choice depends in part saw protesters from across Eastern Europe publicly oppose upon economic prosperity, an important point to keep in one-party rule and state oppression. In Berlin on October 7, mind as digitalization portends fewer jobs, less transpar- 1989—the fortieth anniversary of the German Democratic ency, and more attempts to spread disinformation through- Republic (GDR)—Mikhail Gorbachev, lifted by his Glasnost out the body politic. initiative in the Soviet Union, urged the East German lead- In the spirit of highlighting the fragility and substance ership to strongly consider reforms. of democracy, this issue of the Berlin Journal opens with They did not, of course, and on that day, in the city of a suite of related essays, the first by fellow Daniel Ziblatt Plauen, more than 10,000 demonstrators confronted wa- and his Harvard colleague Steven Levitsky, from their new ter cannons and police dogs. The next day, over 20,000 book, How Democracies Die; the second by fellow Steven gathered in Dresden. Political dissidents numbering over Klein, about the role of debt in the political economies of 70,000 faced down Communist arms in Leipzig’s Monday post-WWII democracies; and the third by Laura D’Andrea Demonstrations on October 9. Over the coming weeks, Tyson, who takes an extended look at how Germany is suc- these figures multiplied. On November 4, the Alexanderplatz cessfully navigating social change as automation takes hold Demonstrations, in Berlin, drew half a million protestors, of parts of its industrial sector. Writer Adam Ehrlich Sachs organized by the city’s actors and theater employees. offers a story of related metaphorical portent, about a blind These popular sentiments were eventually amplified astronomer who predicts a solar eclipse, and Suki Kim re- by West German leaders, including Helmut Kohl, Horst ports from inside the world’s darkest regime, North Korea. Teltschik, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and by American Other shared concerns come to the fore. One topic— counterparts Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and James painfully etched into the history of democracy in America— A. Baker III—all urging the expansion of democratic rights is the legacy of African slavery and colonialism, addressed that would lead to the beginning of the end of the Cold War. by the scholars and thinkers who took part in the Andrew Final vindication would come on the night of November W. Mellon workshop “Double Exposures.” Herein, Rosalind 9, 1989, as jubilant East Germans pushed across the Morris, Natacha Nsabimana, and Yvette Christiansë ap- Bornholmer Straße checkpoint into West Berlin, and awe- proach the past and present of “extraction” from the struck West Germans watched on television. African continent, physical and moral, and Miriam Ticktin The relationship between the United States and offers a timely reflection on walls and immigration. Short Germany was particularly close then. They worked togeth- stories by Angela Flournoy and Paul La Farge allude to er to reunify Germany and to forge a monetary policy that slavery’s deep echo into the suburban present, as epi- would provide a transition for the eastern half of the coun- taphs and apparitions.