Books & Spoken Word
Ece Temelkuran
The celebrated writer, journalist and political commentator, Ece Temelkuran, introduces her latest book, How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship.
Ece Temelkuran, one of Turkey’s best-known political commentators, has reported on democracy worldwide. She heard ‘it couldn’t happen here’ on the night of the Brexit vote; when Trump won in America (against chants of ‘Build that Wall’ and ‘Lock her up’); and when Erdoğan rigged elections, rebuilt the economy around cronyism, and labelled his opposition as terrorists in Turkey. The wave has continued with a populist government elected in Italy and severe restrictions on democracy and freedom in Hungary and Poland.
Temelkuran now offers a guide to spotting the insidious patterns and mechanisms of the populist wave sweeping the globe – before it’s too late. She identifies the early-warning signs of this phenomenon, which is sprouting up across the world from the West and Eastern Europe to South America, defining a global pattern and providing solutions to reversing this.
is needed now More than ever
This event is part of the Festival of Ideas annual Coleridge Series, inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s wide-ranging and radical lectures in Bristol in the 1790s.
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