Defending Democracy: The German Approach

Ronen Steinke, born in Erlangen, grew up in the small Jewish community of Nuremberg. As a political editor at Süddeutsche Zeitung, he focuses on civil and human rights in his commentaries, essays, and columns. His legal dissertation on war crimes tribunals (2011) was praised as a “masterpiece” by FAZ. His publications, including the 2022 bestseller Vor dem Gesetz sind nicht alle gleich, have sparked significant political discourse. His biography of Fritz Bauer, prosecutor of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (2013), was adapted into an award-winning film and translated into multiple languages. Since 2023, he has been a lecturer at the Institute for Criminal Science and Philosophy of Law at Goethe University Frankfurt and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the Thomas Mann House.

Alexandra Lieben is the deputy director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and lecturer at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She also served as faculty advisor for the UCLA Anderson School’s Applied Management Research Program and is an affiliated faculty member of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the UCLA School of Law. A certified mediator, she teaches a. o. constructive communication and alternative dispute resolution to undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA. For more than a decade, she has held seminars in a. o. crisis prevention, crisis de-escalation, and constructive communication for leaders and rank-and-file of public safety and public sector agencies.