ABSTRACT
The past two decades have seen democracies curtail some of our basic rights in the name of international peace (as the Patriot Act of 2001). The pinnacle of mass surveillance under Barack Obama as revealed by Edward Snowden, the right to protest and assemble in danger under Macron’s France as evidenced by his tackling of the Yellow Vests, India passing citizenship measures as veiled religious discrimination, and measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic such as lockdown in tens of countries, or even decrees to extend rule indefinitely (in Hungary), have been criticized for threatening basic rights to movement or to self-determination. Should we see these as protective measures of democracy itself or as inherent threats and signs that it is eroding? Focusing on these issues in an interview with Hauke Brunkhorst will shed light on this distinction with the help of Habermasian concepts such as basic rights and the normativity of constitutions.
