2024
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff honoured for defense of fundamental human rights and values
2024
Michael Ignatieff honoured for defense of fundamental human rights and values
Canadian author, academic, and former politician Michael Ignatieff has won Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences in recognition of his broad-ranging research and writing in defence of fundamental human rights. The award jury highlighted Ignatieff’s multifaceted career, encompassing the study of history and philosophy as well as the practice of journalism and politics — all with a focus on freedom, tolerance, and the safeguarding of institutions.
Dr. Ignatieff says he is “surprised and delighted” to be a 2024 winner of the Princess of Asturias Award, noting that previous winners in the social sciences include many of his “intellectual heroes.”
He has held senior academic posts at various universities, including serving as a president of Central European University (CEU) during a tumultuous period from 2016 to 2021 — when the Hungarian government challenged the university’s legal right to operate in the country. That recent experience, he says, deepened his commitment to the defence of democracy and academic freedom.
“What was shocking is that this was happening in an EU member state, a member of NATO, a member of the democratic family of nations,” he says. “So, it was a very important moment of awakening for me to realize how vulnerable democracy could be and how vulnerable academic freedom could be, and it’s made me since then a very much more adamant defender of academic freedom than I was before.”
Today, as CEU rector emeritus and history professor, Dr. Ignatieff continues to teach the history and law of international human rights. His current research and writing interests include the political experience of his generation.
“I was born in 1947, and we had a very particular trajectory,” he explains. “We had this incredible wave of economic prosperity right through to 1973 and that kind of defined our expectations, our hopefulness. And then we saw the end of communism, which we never expected. We saw the explosive experience of globalization in the ‘90s, and as many of us came to full maturity and assumed positions of responsibility — from 9/11 followed by the financial crisis of 2008 followed by Covid — we’ve had one hammer blow after another. So, I’m interested in the shape of this experience.”
Dr. Ignatieff’s published work includes The Needs of Strangers (1984), The Russian Album (1987), The Warrior’s Honor (1998), Isaiah Berlin: A Life (1998), Virtual War (2000), Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (2001), The Lesser Evil (2004), The Ordinary Virtues (2017), and On Consolation (2021).
