Harvard Lecturer Yascha Mounk

Get Me a Drink If You Want Me to Dance

Yascha Mounk is a lecturer on government at Harvard University and a Fellow in the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund. Published regularly in the New York Times and Die Zeit, he is working on a book about the crisis of liberal democracy. Before joining the panel at a Zócalo/NPR Berlin event, “Is Populism Undermining Western Democracy?” Mounk laughed in the Zócalo green room about his strange past in management consulting.

Q:

Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?


A:

Trying to get back to sleep in my bed.


Q:

What superpower would you most like to have?


A:

Knowing the future.


Q:

What’s the strangest job you’ve ever had?


A:

Management consultant [big laugh].


Q:

What’s your favorite spot in Berlin?


A:

The Landwehr Canal in Kreuzberg.


Q:

What is your favorite train ride?


A:

From Rome to Pisa along the Tyrrhenian Sea.


Q:

What does it take to get you on a dance floor?


A:

Alcohol.


*Photo by Marc Darchinger.