As the long, drawn-out US presidential elections have shown us, people are increasingly choosing their candidate based on identity and affiliation. Concrete, content-related issues, which are the essence of politics, take a back seat in favour of values which are more open to interpretation. On the one hand this has helped the fight for minority rights to gather some much needed steam. Very often however, too little attention is given to concrete proposals for legislation and issues of horizontal redistribution in society. As we look towards the 2017 Bundestag elections we will be discussing with political scientists and activists how these developments should be assessed and how they can lead to positive and concrete change.

Moderation: Konrad Siller is a philosopher and culture-manager, passionate about arts. He studied in in Witten/Herdecke and at University of St Andrews. Inbetween 2013 and 2016 he curated the cultural program of the Goethe-Institut in Glasgow. He is currently working in the strategy departement of Goethe-Institut in Munich.