Debating Matters

DM Berlin: Populism is a threat to democracy

updated 2025

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

Populism is the political buzzword of the day – with commentators, political theorists and politicians all debating its meaning and the merits of its apparent rise in recent years. Examples of populism abound: it dominated discussion in 2016 with the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the White House. The return of Trump in 2025 is just the latest example after the 2023 election of Javier Milei in Argentina [Ref: Populism Studies], the Europe-wide farmers’ protests [Ref: Financial Times], the rise of the Reform Party in the UK [Ref: The Week] and the overwhelming rejection by referendum in Ireland of a proposed constitutional change [Ref: The Guardian]. Whilst many discuss populism as a right-wing phenomenon, it has a long history on the left as well, with electoral success for Syriza in Greece [Ref: New Statesman], Podemos in Spain [Ref: BBC News] and Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW in Germany [Ref: Al Jazeera]

But particular alarm is caused today by its right-wing variety. Some insist it is dangerous for democracy and liberal values, going so far as to suggest that it has echoes of the emergence of fascism in the 1930s and 1940s [Ref: Guardian]. Such fears seemed to be confirmed when news broke in Germany of an alleged meeting between members of far-right populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and neo-Nazi groups. This led to widespread public protests and even calls to ban the AfD [Ref: The Guardian], but the party went on to win 83 seats (out of 630) in the 2025 federal elections. The call to ban a political party, supported by a large number of Germans, gets to the heart of the debate about populism: is populism a reflection of widespread anger and disillusionment with the mainstream, or is it a dangerous force which justifies suspending the democratic process in order to contain it?

DM Berlin: Technological progress will not solve society’s environmental issues

updated 2025

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

Arguably, climate change, and the environmental problems that will occur as a result, are the most pressing issues that humankind faces. The outcome of the COP21 climate talks in Paris in 2015 was hailed as a momentous deal, in which countries pledged, among other things, to cap emissions, and seek to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and below the two degrees which many scientists believe would be disastrous for the planet [Ref: Guardian].

Yet a decade later, progress has been slow. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 400 parts per million (ppm) at the time of the Paris talks to 425 ppm at the end of 2024 [Ref: Climate.gov]. Global CO₂emissions from fossil fuels and industry rose from 35.4 billion tonnes in 2015 to 37.8 billion tonnes in 2023 [Ref: Our World in Data]. In February 2025, it was revealed that just 13 of the 195 parties to the Paris agreement had submitted ‘nationally determined contributions’ – five-yearly plans setting out what countries will do to cut emissions – by the latest deadline [Ref: Carbon Brief]. In fact, the 1.5 degree limit has already been exceeded, in 2024. [Ref: Reuters] One of the first acts of Donald Trump’s second term as US president was to pull out of the Paris agreement – again Ref: Guardian].

DM Berlin: Western museums should repatriate cultural artefacts

Updated 2025

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

In June 2024, Berlin’s Altes Museum returned 25 antiquities, including 21 Apulian vases, which that are believed to have been illegally obtained and smuggled out of Italy four decades earlier. While the museum had originally purchased the collections from a Basel art dealer, it emerged during an investigation that they had originally been in the possession of notorious antiquities smuggler, Giacomo Medici. [Ref: The Arts Newspaper].

Upon returning the artefacts, the German culture minister, Claudia Roth, said that returning the antiquities represented the reality of cultural heritage protection, arguing ‘it’s a question of protecting cultural heritage that is key to our identities from plunder, illegal excavation, theft, smuggling and the illegal trade’.

The debate surrounding the Apulian artefacts mirrors that happening in many other Western countries. For instance, in January 2023, it was revealed that the British Museum has been in talks with Greek officials about returning some of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece on loan in a ‘cultural exchange’ for other ancient artefacts. Legal ownership of the marbles would, however, remain with the British Museum [Ref: Daily Mail].

DM Berlin: In the digital age, we should not expect our online activities to remain private

Updated 2025

Author: Kaja Molinksa

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

Has the expectation of privacy become outdated? In January 2025, it was estimated that almost two thirds of the world’s population uses social media [Ref: Datareportal]. Many today declare they are worried about privacy, but continue to use services that hoover up their data, a contradiction termed the ‘privacy paradox’ [Ref: Guardian]. From the proliferation of connected devices (in 2020, 34 per cent of UK households and 25 per cent of German households had a smart speaker [Ref: Statista]), to taking advantage of the benefits of targeted advertising [Ref: Forbes], it seems that few consumers genuinely take their online privacy seriously. In fact, over 90 per cent of consumers agree to a website’s ‘terms and conditions’ without reading them [Ref: Business Insider]. One study suggested students would even choose free pizza over secure email addresses [Ref: Forbes].

However, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal [Ref: Guardian] to high-profile data breaches, such as in 2020 when the personal data of more than three million customers was leaked by the car rental company Buchbinder, or in 2018 when over 300 million Marriot International guests had data including addresses and passport numbers exposed [Ref: TechAdvisor], we still profess to ‘loathe that our data is mined and scraped’ [Ref: New York Times]. For many, privacy remains an indispensable right and safeguard against overbearing governments – such as in Belarus, where the privacy-focused app Telegram allows protesters to organise against the government [Ref: The Economist].

DM Berlin: Smartphones should be banned in the classroom

Updated April 2025

INTRODUCTION

According to some studies, 98 per cent of the UK population now own a smartphone [Ref: Uswitch]. Recent research by the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom, further found that smartphone ownership among 12- to 15-year-olds is above 95 per cent, with nearly a quarter of three- and four-year-olds owning a device. In addition, their research also showed that half of children aged three to 12 use at least one social-media app, despite the minimum age requirement being 13 [Ref: Guardian]. In Germany, these number are similar, with 90 per cent of 13- to 15-year-olds possessing a smartphone [Ref: bitcom].

Smartphone use has been linked to a wide range of poor educational and mental-health problems, particularly in relation to social-media use [Ref: TES]. Several studies carried out amongst school children in Germany seem to confirm that smartphones are a major source of distraction [Ref: Deutsches Schulportal].

Populism is a threat to democracy

updated 2025

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

Unhealthy lifestyles are not the business of government

updated 2025

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

Since the Covid pandemic, the battle against obesity and unhealthy lifestyles has been more ferocious than ever. Lifestyle factors were found to have a huge influence over how vulnerable people are to hospitalisation and death if infected with Covid-19 [Ref: Office for National Statistics], and after his own brush with death, Boris Johnson announced new plans for rules and regulations to encourage a healthier way of living [Ref: Guardian]. These included widening the existing sugary drinks tax, toughening up packaging rules, introducing a pre-9pm ban on adverts for food high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) and a ban on special offer promotions of HFSS food in supermarkets [Ref: UK Government].

However, during her short reign as prime minister, Liz Truss threatened to reverse the sugar tax and get rid of plans to further regulate the public’s eating habits, despite calls from healthcare professionals to continue with Johnson’s programme [Ref: Sustain]. Then, intermittent-fasting, ‘slimline’ [Ref: Evening Standard] Rishi Sunak took the reins as prime minister, and there was a shift back to more government intervention – something continued under Labour. This flip-flopping between stances by successive leaders shows a clear divide between those who think the state ought to intervene to combat obesity and unhealthy lifestyles and critics who argue such policies are unnecessary, illiberal and doomed to fail.

Before the General Election in 2024, Sunak announced a flagship health policy to introduce a ‘generational’ tobacco ban. Anyone born after 1 January 2009 would never be allowed to buy tobacco products. [Ref: Guardian] While Sunak’s plan had to be scrapped due to the election, the incoming Labour government adopted and expanded the proposal. [Ref: ConservativeHome]

Attempts to regulate the public’s bad habits are nothing new, such as the medieval banning of football [Ref: Bleacher Report] or the American prohibition of alcohol in the early twentieth century [Ref: Thought]. The more recent trend in regulation however, started with tobacco. Since the discovery of the health risks associated with smoking became apparent in the 1950s, legislation has been put in place to reduce it. This process has accelerated in the past 20 years so, with higher taxes, public smoking bans and rules for advertising and packaging [Ref: UK Government]. Should the way that governments have tackled smoking be a template for wider issues of health?

We should accept the risk inherent in contact sports

Updated 2025

This Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

In April 2023, former Wales and British & Lions rugby wing, Dafydd James, revealed he had been diagnosed with onset dementia at the age of 47, with the possibility he also has a degenerative brain disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which can only be discovered posthumously [Ref: The Times]. The former rugby player is the latest high-profile sports star to join the growing class-action lawsuit against rugby’s governing bodies, World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Welsh Rugby Union (WRU). He joins some 200 professional and amateur sportsmen and sportswomen who are suing the professional bodies for failing to take protective action against the risks caused by concussion [Ref: BBC Sport].

This was the first legal move of its kind in world rugby, with some comparing it to the class action against the NFL in the US, which began in 2011. The NFL Concussion case now has over 20,000 retired players accusing the league of not warning about, and hiding, brain injuries associated with the sport [Ref: NFL Concussion Settlement]. Moreover, in 2024, the Washington Post revealed that many more cases have been hidden from sight, arguing, ‘the settlement routinely fails to deliver money and medical care to former players suffering from dementia and CTE… saving the NFL hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more’ [Ref: The Washington Post / Forbes].

Britain should pay reparations for its colonial past

updated 2025

This topic guide is a companion to ‘Germany should pay reparations for its colonial past’

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

Although the issue of slave trade reparations has long been contentious, a new wave of the debate began in 2022, after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, as scrutiny of her reign and the legacy of the British Empire came under the spotlight. Again, more recently, the debate was reignited following the statement from Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, in 2024 that Britain would not take part in any slavery reparations [Ref: Guardian]. However, several former colonies have been progressing plans to remove the British monarch as their head of state and calling for reparations [Ref: The Atlantic]. A move endorsed by Commonwealth leaders at the CHOGMA summit in Samoa in October 2024 who reiterated the view that Britain should commit to reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade [Ref: BBC].

This follows a trend across the West of increasing demand for compensation from Western nations to individuals and countries who were affected by the slave trade. According to some calculations, reparations for the transatlantic slave trade could exceed $18 trillion [Ref: BBC] with those calling for reparations arguing that slavery facilitated the rise of Britain as a global player at the detriment to those whose heritage is rooted in slavery. The implication of this is that these negative affects have filtered down through generations and had a discernible material impact on the present. In summary, it has benefitted the descendants of those who owned and traded slaves, and held back the descendants of slaves [Ref: Guardian].

Tourism benefits the world

updated 2025

Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.

INTRODUCTION

On 25 April 2024, the city of Venice implemented an entry fee scheme for day-trip tourists [Ref: Independent]. According to city officials, the scheme is aiming to ‘safeguard the city from “overtourism”’. The initiative, run as a pilot scheme in 2024, proved successful according to the city and has been reinstated for 2025. This time the city has imposed the entry fee on almost twice as many days as last year, as well as doubling the cost for late bookers. [Ref: Telegraph] Other European cities, have followed suit with a ‘tourist tax’ including Paris, Amsterdam and Barcelona, with a countrywide tax on tourists to Portugal and Greece [Ref: Which]. Closer to home, City of Edinburgh Council has announced that a levy of 5% will take effect from 24 July 2026 [Ref: BBC].

Tourism has traditionally been seen as a way of showing appreciation for different places, peoples and cultures, and many cities around the world have a thriving tourist industry that benefits inhabitants. However, mounting fears about the impact of mass tourism have led many to question whether tourists are actually ruining the places they love. A debate about the effects of tourism on tourist destinations has been going on for some time [Ref: Telegraph], leading to the rise of related ideas like eco-tourism [Ref: International Ecotourism Society] or sustainable tourism [Ref: Wikipedia].