Real Democracy Now! a podcast

Welcome to this bonus episode in Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. Season 2 is about representative democracy and this episode is about the democratic deficit.   In episodes 12 and 13 of Season 2 I spoke to a range of academics about the democratic deficit arising from declining levels of trust and structural aspects of our current system of representative democracy.   Today I talk with P...

In Episode 14 of Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast I'm talking with Quinton Mayne , Associate Professor of Public Policy in the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation in the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  Quinton  received his Ph. D. in Politics from Princeton University. His dissertation, entitled The Satisfied Citizen: Participation, Influence, a...

Welcome to Episode 13 of Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. In today's episode, we are talking at the democratic deficit again, this time focusing more on structural aspects of democracy.   First up I talk to Professor Nadia Urbinati . Nadia is a Professor of Political Theory and Hellenic Studies at Columbia University. She is a political theorist who specialises in modern and contemporary...

Welcome to Episode 12 of Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. In today's episode, we are talking at the democratic deficit, focusing on trust and the concept of stealth democracy.   First up I talk to Professor Gerry Stoker at his research into trust and democracy as well as the concept of stealth democracy.    Gerry is Professor of Governance within Social Sciences: Politics and Internation...

  I ask all of my guests two questions:  what for them is the essence of a real democracy? and  if they could change one thing about our system of democracy what would it be? In episode 1.9 we heard from a number of the guests I interviewed in Season 1 (about deliberative mini-publics) on their view of the essence of a real democracy. And in episode 2. 5 we heard a range of ideas for 'one change t...

Welcome to episode 10 of Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. Today my guest is Professor John Keane .   John is Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. He is also the co-founder and director of the Sydney Democracy Network . He is renowned globally for his creative thinking about democracy and is the author of the Life and Death of Democracy...

Welcome to episode 9 in season 2 of Real Democracy Now! A podcast.    In today's episode, I'm talking to Associate Professor Sofia Näsström from the Department of Government, at the Uppsala University in Sweden. Sofia works in the field of political theory, with a particular focus on issues related to democracy, constituent power, the people, the right to have rights, representation, freedom and p...

Today I'm speaking with Professor Archon Fung . Professor Fung is the Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance. He focuses upon public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He co-directs the T...

Today I'm speaking with Professor Mark Warren . Mark is the Harold and Dorrie Merilees Chair in the Study of Democracy in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia where he established the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions .   His current research interests fall within the field of democratic theory. He is especially interested in new forms of citizen...

Today I'm talking with  Assistant Professor Jean-Paul Gagnon from the University of Canberra. Jean-Paul is a philosopher of democracy specialising in democratic theory.   Jean-Paul's research into democracy has three areas of focus. The first, which I am talking with him about today, is an  ongoing empirical  effort to catalogue democracy's adjectives and to inquire about what knowing these adject...

I ask all of my guests two questions:  what for them is the essence of a real democracy? and  if they could change one thing about our system of democracy what would it be? In episode 1.9 we heard from a number of the guests I interviewed in Season 1 (about deliberative mini-publics) on their view of the essence of a real democracy. Today we hear from guests from Season 1 and 2 on the one change t...

Welcome to episode 4 of Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! A podcast. Today's episode is about non-Western democracy. I'd like to thank David Schecter for bringing this area of democratic thinking and practice to my attention and for introducing me to my two guests: Associate Professor Benjamin Isakhan and PhD scholar Zelalem Sirna from Ethiopia. Both guests highlight the Eurocentric nature of much o...

Thank you for joining me in the third episode of Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! A podcast. Season 2 is looking at representative democracy and today I am talking with three academics who take different approaches to evaluating representative democracy. These three approaches are by no means the only ones, in fact there are many indexes and evaluation frameworks in existence. Which is why Dan Pems...

In today's episode, I'm talking with Dr Roslyn Fuller and Professor Nadia Urbinati.  Dr Roslyn Fuller (dipl. jur./erstes Staatsexamen, Goettingen; PhD, Trinity College Dublin) is a Canadian-Irish academic and columnist, specializing in public international law, and the impact of technological innovation on democracy. Her latest book  Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its...

Welcome back to Real Democracy Now! a podcast. This is episode one of Season Two. Season Two is about representative democracy  Season Two is about representative democracy: its origins, components, how it can be evaluated, different approaches to democracy, the democratic deficit and the relationship between democracy and capitalism. In Episode 1 of Season 2, I'm talking to Professor Paul Cartled...

In this episode I speak to three academics who each take a critical perspective on the operation of deliberative mini-publics. Each of them takes issue with a different aspect of the impact or influence that the recommendations coming from deliberative mini-publics have on public policy. For Associate Professor Genevieve Fuji Johnson the failure of the democratic innovations she studied (which inc...

In today's episode, I speak with Professor Graham Smith and Professor Brigitte Geißel about the evaluation frameworks they have each developed to assess the value of democratic innovations.  I ask each of them how their frameworks apply to deliberative mini-publics and they provide quite different assessments of the value and effectiveness of deliberative mini-publics as democratic innovations. Pr...

In today's episode I speak with four everyday people who have been participants in deliberative mini-publics in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Each person has their own unique take on being a randomly selected participant in a deliberative mini-public, but they all agree they would recommend being part of a deliberative mini-public to family and friends. First up is Ben McPeek who was a...

Professor Fishkin developed the idea of deliberative polling in 1998 since then deliberative polls have been held in over 24 countries and once in 22 languages simultaneously. Professor Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Deliberative Democra...

The G1000 model has expanded beyond its home in Belgium and has been particularly popular in the Netherlands. In today's episode I speak with one of the founders of the G1000 in the Netherlands, Harm van Deijk. Harm has a background in facilitation and used these skills together with the underlying principles of the G1000 to develop a model which has been used in numerous local government areas ac...

The G1000  arose in Belgium out of frustration with the inability of the political parties in Belgium to form a government. The G1000 began in 2011 and had three broad phases: public agenda setting , the  Citizens' Summit and the Citizens' Panel .  Unlike many of the other deliberative mini-publics we've heard about in earlier podcast episodes the G1000 was explicitly about agenda setting by citiz...

Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer is currently the Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse , an organization in the United States that works to reduce political dysfunction and incivility in the political system. As a leader in the field of deliberative democracy, Carolyn works to restore the US's democracy to reflect the intended vision of their founding fathers.    Dr. Lukensmeyer...

Democracy in Practice is an organisation dedicated to democratic innovation, experimentation, and capacity building currently working in Bolivia. Their mission is  to transform how people envision democracy, and to develop innovative ways for even the largest organizations, communities, and governments to be  truly  democratic—not just in theory or in name, but in practice.   Democracy in Practice...

In this episode I speak with three Australian facilitators:  Keith Greaves, co-founder of  Mosaic Lab , a Victorian based company focused on improving democracy through discussion and dialogue (@ 1.11). Lucy Cole-Edelstein, Director of  Straight Talk , a NSW based company specialising in helping people understand each other (@16.36) and Max Hardy, Principal at  Max Hardy Consulting , based in Vict...

With the growth in popularity of deliberative mini-publics there has been a increased demand for people to facilitate these processes. In today's episode I speak to two such people - Emily Jenke from Democracy Co in South Australia and Titus Alexander from Democracy Matters the UK. Emily Jenke has been facilitating community engagement processes for nearly years, most recently moving into supporti...