Reset DOC

May

2026

Venice International University

The Seminars will explore the relationship between civic virtue, character formation, and public ethics at a moment when liberal democracies face growing pressure from autocratic forces. They will consider how virtuous leaders and communities emerge, which social mechanisms foster ethical behavior, and how religious and secular traditions shape character.

May

2026

Luiss Guido Carli University

This international roundtable convenes leading scholars and public intellectuals to examine the contemporary crisis of higher education and its implications for democratic life.

October

2025

University of Milan-Bicocca

Reset DOC is hosting a lecture by Wendy Brown (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) on October 10 at 11:30 a.m. at the University of Milan-Bicocca (Building U6 – Agorà, 4th floor – Aula Massa). The lecture will explore the growing fractures between capitalism and liberal democracy, examining risks of political distortion toward autocratic and patrimonial forms, with a focus on the U.S. experience.

Analyses

The history of the Islamic Republic of Iran—established in 1979 following the revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—is marked by a dense sequence of developments that have progressively altered its political and institutional configuration. These changes, however, have only sporadically been recognized by Western analyses, which have instead tended to perpetuate a more functional and instrumental stereotype based on the image of a monolithic, highly verticalized religious autocracy. While such a characterization was broadly accurate during the first decade of the Islamic Republic, it has undergone a profound transformation since 1989.

Publications

Contemporary democracies face an era of mounting pressure: authoritarian drift, digital disruption, a crisis of representation, and eroding trust in institutions. This is not a passing downturn but a structural transformation threatening the foundations of democratic governance. Born out of the 2025 Venice Seminars, this volume asks a defining question: can democracy’s malaise be addressed within the liberal paradigm, or does it demand a more radical rethinking? Its contributors examine the resources of political liberalism alongside post-liberal alternatives grounded in community, ethics, and political order. The debate remains open — and essential.

Our Initiatives

The Dublin Seminars, in partnership with Boston College Ireland and Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, have kicked out in 2023 to establish as a remarkable cultural appointment, able to promote and consolidate a network of cultural, intellectual and academic relationships among senior and junior scholars in the social sciences, political theory, sociology, legal and religious studies. Thanks to its cross-cultural inspiration, the Dublin Seminars function as an original think tank for a thorough understanding of the challenges facing democracy, politics and international relations in the 21st-century world.

The project “Theologies and practices of religious pluralism” investigates current debates and issues on pluralism within and across religious traditions and how some of these debates are reshaping the status of religion in different public spaces. These adaptations have a profound impact on international relations and daily life in every society, across cultural, ethnic, racial divides. This project is jointly promoted by Reset DOC (Italy), Reset Dialogues (US) the University of Birmingham (UK), the Berkeley Center at Georgetown University (US), the Foundation for Religious Sciences in Bologna and Palermo (Italy) and the Haifa Laboratory for Religious Studies (Israel).

Illiberal trend

Riccardo Cristiano interviews for Reset DOC political scientist Cengiz Aktar on the Turkish nationalist-authoritarian shift. A 360 degrees picture of Turkish society and its relationship with politics, religion and the Kurdish question.