Elmau Dialogues: World in pieces

From 22 to 27 February 2026, Schloss Elmau brought together distinguished political thinkers from around the world for World in Pieces, a symposium curated by Ivan Krastev.

The gathering was conceived as a space for conversations about current trends in political thought shaping our era and the future. Rather than presenting their publications, participants were invited to share ideas, intuitions and different perspectives through a series of closed and public discussions.

The conversations centered on several broad questions: “The End of Hypocrisy?”, “The Past as Future?”, “Does Liberal Democracy Deserve to Survive?”, and “And Where Do We Go from Here?”

The discussions explored the changing international order and the role of political imagination, the ways in which historical analogies shape perceptions of the present and future, and different perspectives on the crisis of liberal democracy.

The program combined closed morning sessions with public conversations in the late afternoon and evening. Participants included Ivan Krastev, Timothy Garton Ash, Eva Illouz, David Runciman, Peter Sloterdijk, Avril Haines, Nathalie Tocci, Mark Leonard, Ayse Zarakol, Yuri Slezkine, Stephen Holmes, Walter Russell Mead, Leonard Benardo, Curtis Yarvin, Milla Mineva, Wolfgang Schmidt, and Dietmar Müller-Elmau.

The public World in Pieces panels focused on Europe, Israel and the future. The program on 26 February concluded with the public discussion “The World in Pieces: The future in my mind”, followed in the evening by a concert by pianist Ludovico Einaudi.

The event received extensive media coverage, including in Spiegel, Der Standaard, NZZ, FAZ, Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung.