Krastev’s lecture
focused on the importance and influence of demography on contemporary politics.
It sought to weave together demographic trends – low fertility rates and aging
populations – with migratory flows, national identity, feelings of anxiety
about the future the nation, and warfare. He outlined the traits of his ‘last
man’. While Fukuyama’s ‘last man’ was satisfied but not ambitious, ‘married’ to
democracy but not in love with it, Krastev’s ‘last man’ is full of anxieties
and terrified that his nation is on the edge of extinction. He is the last
European, the last white man – terrified of the extinction of the political
power of his nation or race. Krastev characterised this as ‘demographic
bulimia’ – an anxious feeling driven by the perception that they are
simultaneously too many and too few people on a specific territory: too many of
‘them’ and too few of ‘us’.
The central argument of Krastev’s lecture was that demographic imagination is a new substitute for political ideology, and that demographic transition and democratic transition are closely interlinked. He substantiated his central argument by positing that: (1) demography and demographic imagination are key to understand the changes in both domestic and international politics; (2) while demographic change will affect both authoritarian and democratic regimes, at least initially it will have much more destabilising effect on democracies; (3) demographic changes and the need of migration that they bring put the focus on the rights of the majorities and as a result they expose the two conflicting notions of ‘the majority’ – the ethnic majority and the electoral majority; (4) while demographic anxiety fuels political support for the far right both in Eastern and the Western Europe, the fears in these geographical areas lead to two different types of illiberal regimes.
