"Reintegrating Europe" is the second event of LSE-IGA Arena's "Is this the New Normal?" democracy doubleheader.

Ivan Krastev (Centre for Liberal Strategies) and Sergei Guriev (EBRD) in conversation with LSE IGA's Anne Applebaum on: Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the future of liberal democracy.

In his latest book, "After Europe", renowned public intellectual Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the European Union—and its potential lack of a future. With far-right nationalist parties on the rise across the continent and the United Kingdom planning for Brexit, the European Union is in disarray and plagued by doubts as never before. Krastev includes chapters devoted to Europe's major problems (especially the political destabilization sparked by the more than 1.3 million migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia), the spread of right-wing populism (taking into account the election of Donald Trump in the United States), and the thorny issues facing member states on the eastern flank of the EU (including the threat posed by Vladimir Putin's Russia). He concludes by reflecting on the ominous political, economic, and geopolitical future that would await the continent if the Union itself begins to disintegrate.

Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. His latest books in English are “After Europe” (UPenn Press, May 2017) “Democracy Disrupted. The Global Politics on Protest” (UPenn Press, May 2014); “In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders?” (TED Books, 2013). He is a co-author with Stephen Holmes of a forthcoming book on perils of the politics of imitation.

Sergei Guriev (https://twitter.com/sguriev?lang=en), Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Professor of Economics at Sciences Po, Paris. Sergei received his Dr Sc in Economics (2002) and PhD in Applied Mathematics (1994) from the Russian Academy of Science and an MSc Summa Cum Laude from the Moscow Institute of Physics in Technology (1993). Dr Guriev did postdoctoral studies in the Department of Economics at M.I.T., and was a Visiting Assistant Professor of the Department of Economics at Princeton University. In 2004-13, Dr Guriev was a tenured Professor of Economics and rector of the New Economic School in Moscow.

Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum), LSE IGA Professor in Practice and co-founder of Arena. Anne is a journalist and prize-winning historian with a particular expertise in the history of communism and the experience of post-communist “democratization” in the Soviet Union and central Europe. She runs 'Arena', a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda, and is building the Transformation Lab, a program focused on the political and economic transformation of individual countries.

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSENewNormal