Event date:
September 12, 2025
Now in its seventh year, this conference addresses the important social issues of today. Come and listen to lectures by foreign academics and experts in a unique format that offers journalists, politicians, representatives of the non-profit sector, and above all the general public, the opportunity to meet and engage in discussion. This year's Symposium will take place in the grand setting of the Minorite Friary in Prague.
Retreat or Resist. This year's subtitle responds to the challenges facing our contemporary democracy — faltering freedom in academia, the situation in Hungary, and the topics of nationalism, disinformation and freedom of expression.
The entire programme of the symposium will be held in English, with simultaneous interpretation into Czech language.
New York Law School
Nadine Strossen is a leading American expert on freedom of speech and the former longtime president of the American Civil Liberties Union, a position she took up as the youngest person in the organization's history. She is one of the most prominent advocates of the view that the best response to hateful or extremist speech is not censorship, but more free discussion and open argument. She points out that suppressing uncomfortable opinions can weaken society's ability to genuinely deal with them. She is also a founding member of the movement Feminists for Free Expression.
Topic: The War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail
University of Arizona
Hrishikesh Joshi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Arizona and a member of the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. His research focuses on normative questions at the intersection of philosophy, politics, and economics, particularly on epistemological problems within this field. He also works on metaethics and ethical theory. He previously taught at Bowling Green State University and served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He earned his PhD from Princeton University, where he was advised by Gideon Rosen, Michael Smith, and Philip Pettit.
Topic: TBA
University of Oxford
Yael Tamir is an Israeli political philosopher, academic, and former politician who has long focused on nationalism, populism, social justice, and education policy. She serves as President of Beit Berl College and also teaches at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. She has previously served as Israel's Minister of Immigration, Minister of Education, and Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. She is the author of the books Liberal Nationalism and Why Nationalism, and is one of the prominent voices in the debate on the relationship between democracy, national identity, and civil society.
Topic: Can nationalism save democracy?
University of Freiburg
Dietrich Murswiek is a German legal scholar and Professor Emeritus of Public Law. He taught at the universities of Göttingen and Freiburg, where he focused extensively on constitutional law and questions concerning the democratic organization of the state. He earned his doctorate with a dissertation on constituent power, and in recent years his academic interest has centered particularly on constitutional questions of democracy and freedom of speech.
Topic: Combating disinformation – How the DSA undermines freedom of expression
Stanford University, Global Network Initiative
Joan Barata is an internationally recognized expert on freedom of speech, media regulation, and digital platforms. He serves as a visiting professor at the Faculdade de Direito – Católica no Porto and is a member of the Center for Law, Democracy and Society at Queen Mary University of London. He previously served as Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech project at Vanderbilt University and also worked at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. He has collaborated with organizations such as UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the Organization of American States, and also has direct experience in media regulation as former Secretary General of the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia.
Topic: Indirect State restrictions on freedom of expression and particular the use of platform regulation as a tool for privatised censorship
Humboldt University of Berlin, Eötvös Loránd University
Daniel Hegedüs serves as Deputy Director for the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) in Berlin and is affiliated as senior visiting fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States and as associate researcher with the Democracy Institute of the Central European University. His research focuses on democratic and rule of law backsliding within the European Union, the intersection of autocratization and foreign policy, and the European and foreign affairs of the Visegrad countries. Daniel is the author of more than 100 academic and policy papers and is a frequent contributor to international media.
Topic: Facing "Free but Not Fair" Elections – and Winning by a Landslide: Hungary's Electoral Integrity Challenges in Light of the 2026 General Election
Institute H21
Karel Janeček is the founder of the Institute H21 and the author of the D21 voting system. He received his PhD in financial mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University. He founded RSJ, which has become the largest market maker in derivatives exchanges. He has worked as a researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and lectured at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University. For him, freedom is at the top of human values, and he is currently primarily concerned with protecting freedom of expression against efforts to restrict it. He is also the founder of the Nadační fond pomoci and the Znesnáze21 platform, the Janeček Foundation, Nadační fond Neuron and the Archa 21 project.
Topic: TBA
Lectures of foreign experts will be held in thematic blocks. Simultaneous interpretation into Czech is provided. The detailed programme will be specified in the week of the event. Follow the Facebook event for the symposium here.
Registration
Opening word
Eric Heinze: What should “progressive” mean in the 21st century?
Peeter Selg: A Clumsy Notion of Democracy: Governing Wicked Problems of the 21st Century
Coffee break
Mahendra Prasad: Choice Under Existential Risk and Goal Uncertainty
Karel Janeček: From Polarization to Moderation: Voting by Consensus with D21
Lunch break
Nicholas W. Zamiska: The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
Moritz von Knebel: Tearing at the seams - automation and the decline of democracy
Coffee break
Natalie Alkiviadou: Hate speech/free speech and the European Court of Human Rights
Jonathan Turley: The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage?
Final word
Afterparty
The Symposium Democracy in the 21st Century: Retreat or Resist will take place at the Minorite Friary. The entrance to the building is located at Malá Štupartská 635/6. Tickets for the full-day event are now on sale.
Buy ticketsKlášter minoritů,
Malá Štupartská 635/6, 110 00 Praha 1 - Staré Město
Friday September 25th 2026
Registration at 08:48 a.m.
Take a look at the past symposium aftermovie.
We study electoral systems, the development of the D21 – Janeček Method, and issues of democracy.
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