Ian McKayA lecture Monday by McMaster University political science professor Ian McKay offers perspectives on the present crisis in democracy.

Political scientist to present perspectives on democratic practice

Democracy as an ideal and practice seems to have entered into a period of crisis, says Ian McKay, history professor at McMaster University.

He notes recent developments from Brazil to Thailand, the Philippines to Hungary, not excluding North America.

“Scholars offer a multitude of competing, often useful explanations, and pundits enthusiastically add their favourite historical analogies, from conflict in ancient Greece to fascism in the 1930s,” Dr. McKay says.

He will present a Canadian perspective on the question “what is going on with democracy?” in his free public lecture “Democracy: Perspectives on its Present Crisis,” Monday, March 4, at 4 p.m. in room 123, Odette Building.

McKay is the author of Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada’s Left History and co-author of The Vimy Trap: Or How We stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Great War.

His UWindsor lecture is sponsored by the Humanities Research Group as part of its Martin Wesley Lecture Series.