Held at St Cross College, University of Oxford, as part of the ECPS Conference 2025 (“We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” July 1–3), Roundtable II offered a wide-ranging philosophical and political interrogation of how “the people” is theorized, invoked, and contested in contemporary democratic thought. Chaired by Dr. Aviezer Tucker (University of Ostrava), the session featured presentations by Naomi Waltham-Smith (Oxford), Bruno Godefroy (Tours), Karen Horn (Erfurt), and Julian F. Müller (Graz). Together, the panel explored the rhetorical, constitutional, and epistemic instabilities surrounding the concept of “the people,” challenging static or essentialist understandings and calling for renewed attention to pluralism, temporality, and audibility within liberal democratic frameworks.
Reported by ECPS Staff
At the ECPS Conference 2025, held from July 1–3 at St Cross College, University of Oxford under the theme “‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” Roundtable II offered a particularly provocative and philosophically expansive exploration of the populist challenge to liberal democratic thought. Chaired by Dr. Aviezer Tucker (University of Ostrava), the session titled “‘The People’ in and against Liberal and Democratic Thought”assembled a diverse array of perspectives, traversing political theory, music philosophy, legal studies, and liberal political economy.
As chair, Dr. Tucker aptly remarked on the intellectual breadth of the panel—a “smorgasbord” (smörgåsbord) of approaches that might well result in an Eintopf, or philosophical stew. With four distinct yet interrelated presentations, the roundtable demonstrated both the urgency and conceptual richness of current debates surrounding democratic legitimacy, popular sovereignty, and the epistemic ruptures posed by populism.
The sequence began with Professor Naomi Waltham-Smith (University of Oxford), whose philosophical interrogation of “listening to the people” challenged political theorists to take seriously the ontological and rhetorical weight of listening in democratic discourse. She provocatively reclassified both “listening” and “the people” as “impossible concepts,” offering a compelling intervention that bridged musical aesthetics and democratic theory.
Next, Associate Professor Bruno Godefroy (University of Tours) advanced a bold normative framework that redefined “the people” in temporal rather than essentialist terms. Arguing for a “presentist” conception grounded in the authority of the living generation, Godefroy called for a democratic constitutionalism that embraces periodic renewal over historical entrenchment.
Finally, Professors Karen Horn (University of Erfurt) and Julian F. Müller (University of Graz) co-presented insights from their edited volume Liberal Responses to Populism. While Professor Horn charted the liberal tradition’s internal reckoning with populism, Professor Müller offered a theoretically rigorous diagnosis of populism’s epistemic incompatibility with liberal democracy—underscoring its rejection of pluralism, compromise, and fallibility.
In sum, Roundtable II embodied the interdisciplinary ethos of the ECPS Conference. Under Dr. Tucker’s guidance, the panel created a dynamic intellectual space in which normative theory, conceptual critique, and institutional reflection could intersect to reassess one of the most contested categories in contemporary politics: the people.
