Events

This workshop is organized by Jean L. Cohen, the Nell and Herbert M. Singer Professor of Political Thought and Contemporary Civilization in the Political Science Department at Columbia University, and Katharina Pistor, the Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School. It is being co-sponsored by the Columbia Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) and Columbia Center for Political Economy (CPE).

The workshop is by invitation only. 

Day 1 – June 9, 2026

I. Democratic Erosion: Politics and Institutions; 9:30-11 a.m.

1. The Poverty of Liberal Democracy
   Nadia Urbinati, Political Science at Columbia University
2. How the transformation of French Political Parties fuels anti-pluralism and disintermediation
   Camille Bedock, Chargée de Recherche CNRS
3. Environmental Movements and the Double-Threat of Authoritarian Erosion
   Rebecca Marwege, American University in Paris
    

II. The Role of Elites in Eviscerating the State: The Professions, Capital, and Tech; 11:15 a.m.-1:15 p.m.

1. Democracy and the Professions
   Madhav Khosla, Columbia Law School
2. Corporate Royalism: the personalistic consolidation of corporate power
   Kate Jackson, University of Cincinnati
3. Radical capital: Business elites, discipline, and the state
   Benjamin Braun, London School of Economics and Political Science
4. Sanction the Broligarchs
   Annette Zimmerman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
    

III. Infrastructural Powers: State, Law, and Technology; 2:30-4:30 p.m.

1. Indebted States as Cash-Flow Machines: How Private Creditors Reshape Enforcement Law in the Hunt for Sovereign Assets
   Benjamin Lemoine, CNRS Research Director, Centre Maurice Halbwachs (CMH), École Normale Supérieure de Paris
2. The State under Family Capitalism
   Andrea Binder, Freie Universität Berlin
3. Information Infrastructures for Relational Data
   Co-Pierre Georg, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
4. Crypto-mercantilism or Crypto-corruption? Donald Trump's monetary doctrine
   Eric Monnet, EHESS and Paris School of Economics

Day 2 – June 10, 2026

IV. Regime Types & Regime Change 10 a.m.-noon

1. Regime Change in Hungary: Empty or Floating Signifier?
   Andrew Arato, The New School for Social Research
2. The Plebiscitary Administration of Things: Bonapartism, Saint-Simonianism, and the Antipolitical State
   Samuel Hayat, CNRS, CEVIPOF
3. Performative Fascism
   Matthias Kumm, NYU School of Law
4. From Monopoly to Laissez-Faire Violence: The Case of Israel
   Nitsan Chorev, Brown University