Alexander Görlach teaches "The Role of Media in Liberal Democracy" at the University of Vienna. He is a honorary professor of ethics and theology at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, where his teaching revolves around theories of secularism. He serves as a senior fellow to the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, a senior research associate to the Institute on Religion in International Studies at Claire College at Cambridge University, as affiliate in the "In Defense of Democracy"-program by the F. D. Roosevelt Foundation at Harvard University, Adams House, and as Future World Fellow at the Center for the Governance of Change at IE University in Madrid. Prior to his current engagements he was a fellow and visiting scholar at Harvard University, at the Center for European Studies and the Divinity School. At Cambridge University he served as fellow at the Center for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). He was a visiting scholar to the University of the Basque Country, to National Taiwan University and to the City University Hong Kong.

Alexander Görlach works on narratives of identity, democracy and populism, politics and religion, pluralism, secularism and cosmopolitism. He holds PhDs in linguistic and comparative religion. His recent book (Herder 2019) is "Homo Empathicus. On Scapegoats, Populists and How to Save Democracy". He is best known as the founder of the debate magazine The European that he also ran as its editor in chief from 2009-2015. Today he publishes www.conditiohumana.io, a magazine on technology, AI and ethics, and www.saveliberaldemocracy.com, an initiative dedicated to the values of humanism and enlightenment. Alexander is an op-ed contributor to The New York Times and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a columnist for Deutsche Welle and for Wirtschaftswoche.