Yascha Mounk

“Brave and necessary…Yascha honestly confronts challenges to democracy, while refusing to give in to pessimism.”— Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic

During these politically turbulent years, Yascha Mounk has emerged as one of the foremost thinkers on democracy: its workings and its consequences.

His most recent book, The Identity Trap, is a thoughtful and comprehensive look at identity politics and social justice. In it, he argues that although appreciating the culture and heritage of minority groups is vital for our democracy, a new ideology is on the rise: one that puts too much emphasis on group identity, and in doing so, deepens polarization and threatens our democracy. He shows how this “identity synthesis” is actually counterproductive to true equality, and why we must subject it to a serious critique: “one that is open to taking its most useful contributions on board, but ultimately insists on striving for a more ambitious and optimistic vision of the future.” Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr., writes that “Yascha Mounk and I don’t agree on everything, inevitably, but I very much admire his aim to take seriously a set of ideas that have been subject to much more heat than light. Social identities connect us in multiple and overlapping ways; they are not protected but betrayed when we turn them into silos with sentries.” The Identity Trap was named to The Economist‘s Best Books of 2023, The Financial Time‘s Best Books of 2023 (Politics), and Inc.‘s Non-Obvious Book Awards.

His previous book, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, offers an in-depth understanding of an urgent problem, and genuine hope in humanity’s ability to solve it. Yascha explains that humans are “groupish” in nature, tending to create different groups and bond fiercely with other group members. If we can channel this tendency in a productive fashion, creating bridging identities that allow us to bond with people who are different from us, then we can form a democracy built on genuine mutual solidarity—one where all members are equal and work together to meet the challenges in front of us. Applying international lessons to the United States, Yascha enables us to see our political and social situation with fresh eyes. Legendary political scientist Francis Fukuyama calls The Great Experiment “a blueprint for a more optimistic future,” and former president Barack Obama named it to his 2022 Summer Reading List.

His other books include The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It, in which he predicted the rise and danger of authoritarian populism before anyone else and provided a guide for acting and fighting for our rights and freedoms.

Yascha writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN, among others. For Slate, he writes “The Good Fight” column and hosts the corresponding podcast on populism, resistance, activism, and the changing face of democracy. He is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute, a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the founder of the publication Persuasion.