Educational Approaches to Strengthen Democratic Commitment

The prominent German social philosopher Oskar Negt, who passed away in February 2024, highlighted the importance of education for the health of democracy when he famously stated in an interview in 2004: ‘Democracy is the only form of government that has to be learned, while all other forms of government do not. Dictatorships or a system of terror repress political education. For me, all real education is political.’ Education is not the panacea for all societal problems, especially not those that have deeply rooted structural causes, but these structures are maintained, and can be changed, by people, which underscores the important of education. This applies also to the context we are discussing in this book. Education is, I argue, a crucial and widely acknowledged yet under-utilised element in our approaches to equip citizens with the mindset, knowledge and skills needed to withstand the appeal of far right and other anti-democratic forces.