Virtue and Democratic Resilience 

Listening to the Voice of Ethics in a Broken Polis

The 2026 Venice Seminars and Summer School will explore the relationship between civic virtue, character formation, and public ethics at a moment when liberal democracies face mounting pressures from autocratic actors, identity-driven polarization, and opportunistic leadership.

Classical liberal culture values the ability of a free and honest market to put the pursuit of personal interest to the benefit of the whole community. Still, it has developed its vision of a well-ordered society against the backdrop of a public ethic historically rooted in the civic virtues of empathy and solidarity.

Today, however, we are witnessing behavior inspired by possessive greed and the most reckless selfishness brought into the public sphere as guiding principles of government action, both nationally and internationally.

The populist reaction in Western countries to widespread dissatisfaction with economic malaise, growing inequalities, and the loss of security increasingly produces radicalism of various kinds, which fuels resentment, intolerance, hatred towards political opponents, creates scapegoats, antisemitism, anti-Islamism, and mobilization against immigrants and cultural diversity of all kinds. At the same time, they undermine a sense of responsibility, the sharing of the polis, the vision of the common good, and the civic virtues that sustain a supportive community.

This unhealthy backdrop of political conflicts, which positively animate the life of liberal democracies when they take place within the limits of constitutional rules, paves the way for autocratic tendencies, unscrupulous leadership, and the abandonment of self-restraint of the élites, which is an essential feature of democratic systems and mentalities.

Our premise is that institutions alone are not enough for an effective and proportionate response to these trends: democratic resilience also depends on shared moral cultures and forms of citizenship grounded in responsibility, temperance, competence, and a commitment to the common good.

Invited speakers & faculty (TBC): Scott Appleby, Paolo Benanti, Massimo Borghesi, Giancarlo Bosetti, Luigino Bruni, Craig Calhoun, Adrien Candiard, José Casanova, Fadi Chehadé, Fadi Daou, Alessandro Ferrara, Pasquale Ferrara, Fulvia Giachetti, Philip S. Gorski, Vera King, Jonathan Laurence, Mimmo Lucano, Mauro Magatti, Eugenio Mazzarella, Hans Peter Muller, Hartmut Rosa, Giorgia Serughetti, Antonio Spadaro, Brandon Vaidyanathan, and more to be announced.

We aim to understand

– how “virtuous” leaders and communities emerge,

– which mechanisms encourage ethical behavior, and

– how religious and secular traditions can contribute to character formation within pluralistic societies.

Recognizing that religion is often manipulated as a tool of exclusion, the seminar examines both

– the political misuse of the sacred and

– the positive potential of faith traditions for social cohesion, care, solidarity, trust building, and reconciliation.

Through real-world case studies, interdisciplinary contributions, and global perspectives, the Venice Seminars become a laboratory for

– rethinking virtue as a shared social practice capable of addressing the clear signs of a crisis or decline in liberal democracy: from elite indifference to resentment, from corrosive polarization to institutional fragility,

– outlining a renewed vision of leadership and citizenship rooted in character, integrity, and reciprocity,

– showing how ethical revitalization can become a decisive resource for democracy’s future.