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Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship
Most modern democracies punish hate speech. Less freedom for some, they claim, guarantees greater freedom for others. Heinze rejects that approach, arguing that democracies have better ways of combatting violence and discrimination against vulnerable groups without having to censor speakers. Critiquing dominant free speech theories, Heinze explains that free expression must be safeguarded not just as an individual right, but as an essential attribute of democratic citizenship. The book challenges contemporary state regulation of public discourse by promoting a stronger theory of what democracy is and what it demands. Examining US, European, and international approaches, Heinze offers a new vision of free speech within Western democracies.
250 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2017
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About the author
Eric Heinze
14 books13 followersAfter completing studies in Paris, Berlin, Boston, and Leiden, Eric worked with the International Commission of Jurists and UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, and on private litigation before the United Nations Administrative Tribunal in New York. He conducts lectures and interviews internationally in English, French, German, and Dutch, and is a member of the Bars of New York and Massachusetts, and has also advised NGOs on human rights, including Liberty, Amnesty International and the Media Diversity Institute.
From 2016 – 2019 Eric served as Project Leader for the four nation EU (HERA) consortium Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective (MELA), and in 2022 he served as General Rapporteur on the Criminalisation of Hate Speech for the 21st General Congress of the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé, held in Asunción, Paraguay.
His prior awards and fellowships have included a Fulbright Fellowship, a French Government (Chateaubriand) Fellowship, a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellowship, a Nuffield Foundation Grant, an Obermann Fellowship (Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa), and several Harvard University Fellowships, including a Sheldon grant, an Andres Public Interest grant, and a C. Clyde Ferguson Human Rights Fellowship.
Heinze founded and directs Queen Mary’s Centre for Law, Democracy, and Society (CLDS). His opinion pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Times Higher Education, Aeon, The Raw Story, openDemocracy, Speakers’ Corner Trust, Quillette, The Conversation, Left Foot Forward, Eurozine, and other publications, and he has done television, radio and press interviews for media in Denmark, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, the UK and the US. He serves on the Advisory Board of Social Theory and Practice, the International Journal of Human Rights, the University of Bologna Law Review and the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica (journal of the Italian Society of Political Philosophy) and Heliopolis: Culture Civiltà Politica.
Heinze’s most recent book, The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (2022, The MIT Press) has been nominated for ‘The Next Big Idea’, Season 18 (non-fiction published from February – July 2022). It has been reviewed in Joe Humphreys’ Unthinkable series in the Irish Times and in several other publications and in 2023 the Chinese translation was published in Taipei by Motifpress. Several of Heinze's other books have also been translated internationally.
Heinze’s articles have appeared in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Harvard Human Rights Journal, International Theory, Modern Law Review, International Journal of Human Rights, The Journal of Comparative Law, Constitutional Commentary, the International Journal of Law in Context, Ratio Juris, Legal Studies, the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, Michigan Journal of International Law, National Black Law Journal, Journal of Social & Legal Studies, Law & Critique, and several other journals. He has also contributed chapters to such collections as Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities (Oxford University Press, 2020); Extreme Speech and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009); Religious Pluralism and Human Rights (Intersentia, 2006) and Minority and Group Rights Toward the New Millennium (Nijhoff, 1999).
From 2016 – 2019 Eric served as Project Leader for the four nation EU (HERA) consortium Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective (MELA), and in 2022 he served as General Rapporteur on the Criminalisation of Hate Speech for the 21st General Congress of the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé, held in Asunción, Paraguay.
His prior awards and fellowships have included a Fulbright Fellowship, a French Government (Chateaubriand) Fellowship, a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellowship, a Nuffield Foundation Grant, an Obermann Fellowship (Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa), and several Harvard University Fellowships, including a Sheldon grant, an Andres Public Interest grant, and a C. Clyde Ferguson Human Rights Fellowship.
Heinze founded and directs Queen Mary’s Centre for Law, Democracy, and Society (CLDS). His opinion pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Times Higher Education, Aeon, The Raw Story, openDemocracy, Speakers’ Corner Trust, Quillette, The Conversation, Left Foot Forward, Eurozine, and other publications, and he has done television, radio and press interviews for media in Denmark, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, the UK and the US. He serves on the Advisory Board of Social Theory and Practice, the International Journal of Human Rights, the University of Bologna Law Review and the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica (journal of the Italian Society of Political Philosophy) and Heliopolis: Culture Civiltà Politica.
Heinze’s most recent book, The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (2022, The MIT Press) has been nominated for ‘The Next Big Idea’, Season 18 (non-fiction published from February – July 2022). It has been reviewed in Joe Humphreys’ Unthinkable series in the Irish Times and in several other publications and in 2023 the Chinese translation was published in Taipei by Motifpress. Several of Heinze's other books have also been translated internationally.
Heinze’s articles have appeared in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Harvard Human Rights Journal, International Theory, Modern Law Review, International Journal of Human Rights, The Journal of Comparative Law, Constitutional Commentary, the International Journal of Law in Context, Ratio Juris, Legal Studies, the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, Michigan Journal of International Law, National Black Law Journal, Journal of Social & Legal Studies, Law & Critique, and several other journals. He has also contributed chapters to such collections as Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities (Oxford University Press, 2020); Extreme Speech and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009); Religious Pluralism and Human Rights (Intersentia, 2006) and Minority and Group Rights Toward the New Millennium (Nijhoff, 1999).
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January 1, 2021
This is an excellent piece of scholarship. Heinze expertly navigates the treacherous free speech debates of the past half century. His theory is a novel - because it deploys legal historicism and democratic theory - but plausible approach to understanding speech rights. Even if Heinze's account ultimately fails to convince hardcore prohibitionists, what's significant in this work is the shift toward recognising what's at stake in the debate, and in so doing provides a more accurate conception of the society in which we live. Grasping Heinze's theory sheds light on more than just hate speech; it offers an implicit theory of constitutional difference, one that is crucial to understanding what modern democracies have become.
Must read.
Must read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review