Roundtable: what is liberalism and why does it matter?

This roundtable gathers together scholars and writers from across the University and beyond to interrogate the (multiple) meanings of liberalism, and its import in this age of polarization and anger. It is the first in a proposed series of conversations on liberalism at Wolfson, in the spirit of our first President, Sir Isaiah Berlin.

Ben Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions and Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford. Edmund Fawcett is a journalist and author of Liberalism: the Life of an Idea and Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition. Adnan Naseemullah is Professor of Comparative and South Asian Politics and Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford. Tom Simpson is Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy and Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford. Emily Zackin is Winant Visiting Professor of American Government and Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford.

Image credit: “La Maison du Repos” by Evelyne Glyne