Tyranny: Ancient and Modern

The problem of tyranny is at once a classic problem of political philosophy and a pressing issue of contemporary foreign policy. The recent war in Iraq, and the sharp debates it set off around the world, offered yet another reminder of just how confused our thinking about the nature of good and bad regimes, sovereignty, legitimacy, human rights, and the use of force has become since the end of the Cold War. As Mark Lilla has suggested in a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, this confusion may have roots in the nineteenth-century, when classic notions of tyranny and despotism were abandoned in the face of new developments in world politics and political thought. However that may be, it is certainly the case that developments in the twentieth-century -- communism, fascism, decolonization, fundamentalism -- convinced many that the concept of tyranny was no longer useful for understanding global political phenomena.

We wish to reopen this question by approaching the concept of tyranny from two angles: that of the history of ideas, and that of contemporary politics. The first day of the conference will be devoted to examining the history of the concept of tyranny (and related ideas), from the Greeks down through the nineteenth-century, and then in the twentieth-century, when it was replaced by terms like "totalitarianism." Among the questions we will be asking is whether dramatic changes in political experience have rendered the original idea of tyranny fruitless, or whether, on the contrary, it remains essential for distinguishing types of political regimes.

The second day will be devoted to contemporary issues, beginning with a roundtable on tyranny and human rights, which we hope will generate a discussion of the relative usefulness of the two ideas for understanding and responding to oppression and injustice in the world. We will then conclude with a more wide-ranging discussion of tyranny and foreign policy, focusing on whether sensible policy needs to distinguish tyrannies from other sorts of regimes in order to set and achieve its aims.

All sessions will be held in the third-floor lecture hall of Swift Hall (1025 E. 58th St.) on the campus of the University of Chicago. Questions about this event may be directed to Stephen Gregory (773-702-3423, Stephen-gregory@uchicago.edu).

Friday, May 14	THE CONCEPT OF TYRANNY

9:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M.	Ancients and Moderns Chair: Ran Halévi, C.N.R.S., Centre de Recherches Politiques Raymond Aron Tyranny From Plato to Locke Nathan Tarcov, University of Chicago Response: Josh Ober, Princeton University A Family of Political Concepts: Tyranny, Despotism, Bonapartism, Caesarism. Dictatorship, 1750-1917 Melvin Richter, Hunter College, CUNY Response: Mark Lilla, University of Chicago

2:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.	The Twentieth-Century Challenge Chair: Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland "To Proclaim the Strength of Collective Man": Totalitarian Aspirations and Practice in Europe Charles Maier, Harvard University Response: Jan Gross, Princeton University Postcolonial African and Middle Eastern Tyrannies: Combining the Worst of the Classical and Modern Traditions Daniel Chirot, University of Washington Response: Marina Ottaway, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace



Saturday, May 15	CONFRONTING TYRANNY

9:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M.	Tyranny and Human Rights A Roundtable Discussion Chair: Jean Elshtain, University of Chicago Aryeh Neier, Open Society Institute Marc Plattner, editor, Journal of Democracy Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide

2:00 P.M. - 5:30 P.M.	Tyranny and Foreign Policy A Roundtable Discussion Chair: Nathan Tarcov, University of Chicago Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism Pierre Hassner, Centre d'Études et de recherches internationales John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago

The John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy

Introduction

Conference Schedule

Friday, May 14

THE CONCEPT OF TYRANNY

Saturday, May 15

CONFRONTING TYRANNY