Author Yascha Mounk on Putin’s ‘obsolete’ liberalism claim: ‘Putin may be speaking more from fear than confidence’

Liberalism, even democratic socialism, might be flourishing in parts of the United States, with the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waving the banner of progressive politics.

But according to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, liberalism is obsolete.

He’s not the first to declare the death of the defining philosophy of western democracies, but at a time when we are witnessing the rise of extremism and fundamentalism across the world, could he be right?

Yascha Mounk is an academic and author who examines the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy.