Soft Power and the Global Ascendance of Speech Suppression

The argument of this session is that speech suppression has evolved from hard to soft strategies of regime control, largely replacing formal, direct, and top-down mechanisms with more informal mechanisms, including intimidation that promotes self-censorship and identity politics that limits or suppresses free speech. We will examine these strategies globally to illustrate the infrastructure of speech suppression and examples of resistance.

Dennis B. Klein, Ph.D., is a member of the affiliate faculty at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and Kean University Professor of History emeritus, where he directed the Jewish Studies program and Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies program. Before joining Kean in 1996 he served as founding director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Braun Center for Holocaust Studies and its Hidden Child Foundation as well as editor in chief of ADL’s Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies. In addition to his philosophical counseling practice, he is currently writing his 7th and 8th books about bystander constructions and the global epidemic of speech suppression.