The Power of Friendship in a Broken Political World

The Power of Friendship in a Broken Political World How can we stay in relationships with people with whom we disagree in polarized times? Friendship is a private comfort. But it is also political work–the daily, unglamorous business of talking with people whose views unsettle us and whose reasoning we may never fully understand. What can the friendships sustained by the famous philosopher Hannah Arendt— including with people whose politics she found troubling—teach us about sustaining democracy today? What has eroded our capacity to stay in dialogue across differences? In an age of mass loneliness and ideological certainty, what would it mean to treat friendship, rather than political consensus or moral purity, as the foundation of democratic life? The distinguished scholar of Arendt’s thought, Roger Berkowitz, pursues these questions in conversation with Sanjay Ruparelia.

About the speaker: Roger Berkowitz is the Founder & Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, and Professor of Political Studies, Philosophy, and Human Rights, at Bard College. His work examines how justice is made present in the world. Professor Berkowitz is author of The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition; co-editor of Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Hannah Arendt's Denktagebuch (2017); Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics (2010); co-editor of The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis (2012), and editor of the annual journal HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center. His essay "Reconciling Oneself to the Impossibility of Reconciliation: Judgment and Worldliness in Hannah Arendt's Politics," helped bring attention to the centrality of reconciliation in Hannah Arendt's work. Professor Berkowitz also edits the Hannah Arendt Center's weekly newsletter, Amor Mundi. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Bookforum, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Paris Review Online, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, The American Interest, and many other publications. Berkowitz is the 2019 recipient of the Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought given by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Bremen, Germany. His latest book is, A World We Share: Hannah Arendt and the Power of Friendship in a Broken World (Yale University Press, October 2026).

About the discussant: Sanjay Ruparelia is Professor of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he holds the Jarislowsky Democracy Chair, and a Senior Fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and the Centre for Strategic Statecraft. His main publications include Divided We Govern: Coalition Politics in Modern India; The Indian Ideology, and Understanding India’s New Political Economy. His research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Commonwealth Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science and Humanities Research Council as well as Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, New School, Notre Dame, Princeton, Stellenbosch and Yale. Sanjay serves as a co-chair of Participedia, which studies democratic innovations globally, on the editorial boards of Asian Perspective, Indian Politics and Policy and Pacific Affairs, and the advisory board of the Canadian International Council. He hosts On the Frontlines of Democracy, a monthly podcast and lecture series, and regularly contributes to media in Asia and North America, including the CBC, CTV, Channel News Asia, Globe and Mail, Hill Times, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, New York Times, The Hindu, The Walrus, Toronto Star and Washington Post. Sanjay previously taught at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University. He earned a B.A. in Political Science from McGill University, and a M.Phil in Sociology and Politics of Development and Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Cambridge.

About the series: On the Frontlines of Democracy is a public lecture and podcast series to analyze the prospects of democracy in the twenty-first century. Around the world, democracy faces serious challenges, old and new. Can we protect individual rights and the rule of law in an era of popular mistrust, severe partisanship and resurgent nationalism? How can our democracies reduce inequalities of power, wealth and status, defend deep diversity and confront climate change in the new digital age? Can we develop innovative strategies to revitalize civic engagement, empower public institutions and resist autocratic threats? How can we support the expansion of democracy, in an evolving post-western order, without committing the mistakes of the past?