Podcasts about democratic theory

In this episode: What the passage of the referenda means for us What the district is doing and can do more of in building trust What makes participation in local school gov't difficult and what we can do about it. A surprising amount of Hannah Arendt. LINKS: My contact info The district's long-range facilities plan WSD facilities referendum project list WSD Financial transparency plan Manny Teodoro's The Profits of Distrust Linda Zerilli's incredible A Democratic Theory of Judgment, which has really informed my reading of Arendt.

One of the most influential thinkers -- and his most influential work -- in the history of Chinese democratic thought.Support the show

GUEST OVERVIEW: Denis White wrote his PhD dissertation on Moral Responsibility, and his MA on the Political Philosophy of Edmund Burke, while also tutoring in philosophy at The University of Melbourne. His published work includes a book on the Philosophy of the Liberal Party of Australia, and a monograph on Political Power – plus academic articles on Liberty, Democracy, Constitutionalism, Political Advice, Political Communication, and Political Decision-Making. Careerwise, he currently runs his own strategy planning consultancy, Stride Consulting, with clients including industry bodies, governments, universities, schools, and private businesses. He worked as an adviser, speechwriter, and director in Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's Private Office. He designed and taught courses on Democratic Theory, Issue Analysis, Great Political Thinkers, and Methodology while lecturing in Politics at Monash University. He was Executive Director of the Trinity College Foundations Studies Program, a pathway for International Students to The University of Melbourne, during its formative years.

This week, we delve into how the influential theorist Michel Foucault challenged and changed our conceptions of power. We also begin to plumb how a feminist understanding of power can help inform our efforts to perpetuate social change. Our guest scholar for this conversation is Dr. Amy Allen, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University, who helps us deepen our understanding of the inescapability and essential neutrality of power. --- Dr. Amy Allen is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Advancement and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University. Her work engages with 20th-century Continental Philosophy, Critical Theory, Feminist Theory, and Social and Political Theory. She completed her PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University. Before joining Penn State, she taught philosophy at Grinnell College, Dartmouth College, and the University of Edinburgh. She has served in a number of prominent positions such as sitting on the executive committee of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Association. She has been an executive co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, a co-editor-in-chief of Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, and editor of the series New Directions in Critical Theory published by Columbia University Press. --- While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic of power: Allen, A. (2018). The power of feminist theory. Routledge. Allen, A. (2007). The politics of our selves: Power, autonomy, and gender in contemporary critical theory. Columbia University Press. Allen, A. (1998). Rethinking power. Hypatia, 13(1), 21-40. Allen, A. (2002). Power, subjectivity, and agency: Between Arendt and Foucault. International journal of philosophical studies, 10(2), 131-149. --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

Attacks on those protesting the Israeli state policies and practices which have maintained the violent dispossession of Palestinians have commonly misrepresented, distorted, and even manufactured disinformation. This has done great damage to the lives and careers of many.  As public opinion shifts against the Israeli state, attacks by extreme Zionists have increased. On today's show we speak with two individuals about this phenomenon. Nader Hashemi and Omar Shakir help us understand it from many different angles--legal, historical, and personal.Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He obtained his doctorate from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and previously was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the UCLA Global Institute. Dr. Hashemi was previously the founding Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.  His intellectual and research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and political theory, in particular debates on the global rise of authoritarianism, religion and democracy, secularism and its discontents, Middle East and Islamic politics, democratic and human rights struggles in non-Western societies and Islam-West relations. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future (Melville House, 2011), The Syria Dilemma (MIT Press, 2013), Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2017) and a four-volume study on Islam and Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (Routledge, 2023). He is frequently interviewed by PBS, NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera, Pacifica Radio, Alternative Radio and the BBC and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, The Nation, Al Jazeera Online, CNN.com among other media outlets. Omar Shakir serves as the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, where he investigates human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza and has authored several major reports, including a 2021 report comprehensively documenting how Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians. As a result of his advocacy, the Israeli government deported Omar in November 2019. Prior to his current role, he was a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he focused on US counterterrorism policies, including legal representation of Guantanamo detainees. As the 2013-14 Arthur R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow at Human Rights Watch, he investigated human rights violations in Egypt, including the Rab'a massacre, one of the largest killings of protesters in a single day. A former Fulbright Scholar in Syria, Omar holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he co-authored a report on the civilian consequences of US drone strikes in Pakistan as a part of the International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Affairs, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford.             

Joseph Lacey is Associate Professor of Political Theory at University College Dublin. He is about to embark on a five-year project looking at the moral agency of participants in elections. That's politicians, special advisers, journalists and so on. But it's also you and me: people who engage with political messaging, perhaps take some interest in what's going on behind the scenes and, ultimately, vote in elections. In this episode Joseph talks about the questions he's interested in, his plans for the research, what's distinctive about the method he's going to use, and what he hopes to get out of it. Here are some readings suggested by Joseph as good and relevant to the topic:Beckman, Arthur. 2018. ‘Political Marketing and Intellectual Autonomy: Political Marketing & Intellectual Autonomy'. Journal of Political Philosophy 26(1): 24–46.Beerbohm, Eric. 2016. ‘The Ethics of Electioneering'. Journal of Political Philosophy 24(4): 381–405.Green, Jeffrey. 2010. The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lipsitz, Keena. 2004. ‘Democratic Theory and Political Campaigns'. Journal of Political Philosophy 12(2): 163–89.Scammell, Margaret. 2014. Consumer Democracy: The Marketing of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.Twitter: @EthicsUntangledFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetlLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Stefano Visentin"Schiavitù"Biennale Democraziahttps://biennaledemocrazia.itBiennale Democrazia Giovedì 23 marzo, ore 21:00Circolo dei Lettori, Via Bogino, TorinoStefano Visentinintroduce Alessandro Tuccillo letture di Matteo FedericiLa schiavitù accompagna la storia umana sin dalle origini. Nella prima età moderna, però, il fenomeno muta. Si lega in modo strettissimo, da un lato, al colonialismo; e dall'altro, più in generale, al rapido sviluppo della civilizzazione europea e occidentale. A uno sguardo di lunga durata, che parta dal XVI secolo e arrivi ai nostri giorni, la schiavitù appare tutt'altro che un retaggio del passato: si rivela invece una struttura socio-economica decisiva. Fondamentale per un sistema economico capace di sfruttare a proprio vantaggio le differenze sociali ed economiche nella forza lavoro, a livello mondiale.prenota il tuo postohttps://www.vivaticket.com/it/ticket/schiavitu/203158Stefano Visentin è professore associato di Storia delle dottrine politiche presso il Dipartimento di Economia Società e Politiche (Desp) dell'Università di Urbino “Carlo Bo”, e docente di Storia delle dottrine politiche e di Pensiero politico della globalizzazione presso la Scuola di Scienze politiche e sociali.I suoi principali ambiti di ricerca riguardano: il pensiero politico di Spinoza (con particolare attenzione al concetto di democrazia); il repubblicanesimo olandese tra la fine del XVI e il XVII secolo; il pensiero di Machiavelli e la sua ricezione nella riflessione politica contemporanea; il tema della servitù volontaria in Etienne de la Boétie e oltre; il dibattito contemporaneo sulla crisi della democrazia; gli studi postcoloniali e l'opera di Frantz Fanon; il dibattito sul populismo; il pensiero politico di Carl Marx.E' autore di una monografia (La libertà necessaria. Teoria e pratica della democrazia in Spinoza, Pisa 2001) e di numerosi articoli su Machiavelli, Spinoza e il pensiero politico olandese, nonché coeditore degli atti dei convegni internazionali Spinoza. Individuo e moltitudine (Cesena 2007), Spinoza: lapotenza del comune (Hildeseim 2012) e Machiavelli: tempo e conflitto (Milano 2012). Ha inoltre curato la traduzione italiana del De haereticis di Sébastien Castellion (La persecuzione degli eretici, Torino 1997), ed è stato editore del volume XXX, numero 58 (2018) della rivista “Scienza & Politica”, dedicatoal tema Le libertà dei moderni, e del volume 8, anno V (2020) della rivista “Consecutio Rerum” intitolato “People have the power”. Potenza, limiti e contraddizioni di un concetto moderno.Tra le pubblicazioni più recenti si segnalano: Distendere il marxismo. L'eredità di Frantz Fanon nei Subaltern Studies, in Genealogie della modernità, a cura di C. Conelli ed E. Meo, Milano 2017; Populismo como contrapoder. El final de la democracia liberal y la política de los gobernados, in Pueblos, derechos y estados: ensayos entre Europa y América Latina, eds. D. A. Fernández Peychaux, D. Scalzo, Buenos Aires 2018. La critica dei soggetti collettivi tra l'Ideologia tedesca e il 18 Brumaio, in Marx: la produzione del soggetto, a cura di L. Basso, M. Basso, F. Raimondi e S. Visentin, Roma 2018; ‘Non Defuit Materia: Freedom and Necessity in Spinoza's Democratic Theory', in Materialism and Politics, ed. By B. Bianchi, E. Filion-Donato, M. Miguel, and A. Yuva, Berlin 2021; Oltre l'enigma della servitù volontaria. Desiderio, assoggettamento e libertà nel pensiero politico della prima modernità, “Filosofia politica”, 1, aprile 2022IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.itQuesto show fa parte del network Spreaker Prime. Se sei interessato a fare pubblicità in questo podcast, contattaci su https://www.spreaker.com/show/1487855/advertisement

How can we measure democracy? In the first episode of the Comparative Democracy Takeover our guest host Rikki Dean deals with this question and talks to Carl Knutsen und Brigitte Geißel about the conceptualisation of democracy. If you would like to learn more about the work of Carl Knutsen and Brigitte Geissel, then check out the links to their research below, as well as links to some of the other works referenced in the episode. Carl Knutsen Carl Knutsen's website: https://chknutsen.com/ The V-DEM project website https://www.v-dem.net/ Coppedge, M., Gerring, J., Glynn, A., Knutsen, C. H., Lindberg, S. I., Pemstein, D., Seim, B., Skaaning, S.-E., & Teorell, J. (2020). Varieties of democracy: Measuring two centuries of political change. Cambridge University Press. Coppedge, M., Gerring, J., Knutsen, C. H., Krusell, J., Medzihorsky, J., Pernes, J., Skaaning, S.-E., Stepanova, N., Teorell, J., & Tzelgov, E. (2019). The methodology of “varieties of democracy”(V-Dem). Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, 143(1), 107–133. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0759106319854989 Knutsen, C. H., Teorell, J., Wig, T., Cornell, A., Gerring, J., Gjerløw, H., Skaaning, S.-E., Ziblatt, D., Marquardt, K. L., & Pemstein, D. (2019). Introducing the Historical Varieties of Democracy dataset: Political institutions in the long 19th century. Journal of Peace Research, 56(3), 440–451. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343318823866 Brigitte Geissel: Brigitte Geissel's website: https://www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de/53879167/Prof__Dr__Brigitte_Gei%C3%9Fel Geissel, B. (2022). The Future of Self-Governing, Thriving Democracies: Democratic Innovations By, With and For the People. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003297109 Mayne, Q., & Geissel, B. (2016). Putting the demos back into the concept of democratic quality. International Political Science Review, 37(5), 634–644. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512115616269 Other works referenced in the episode: Warren, M. E. (2017). A Problem-Based Approach to Democratic Theory. American Political Science Review, 111(01), 39–53. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055416000605 Hibbing, J. R., & Theiss-Morse, E. (2002). Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work. Cambridge University Press. Adcock, R., & Collier, D. (2001). Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research. American Political Science Review, 95(3), 529–546. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055401003100

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Of all the concepts that form the constellation of modern political thought, surely “solidarity” is a strong candidate for the most challenging. At once influential and undertheorized, the concept of solidarity appears to function across a startling range of discourses. – Max Pensky, The Ends of Solidarity (2008) This book is intended to serve as a contemporary response to the pessimism about contemporary political life that is both overwhelming and demotivating. Far from giving in to that dire picture of our collective lives, it challenges readers to see themselves as potential members of solidarity organizations, to build society when forces attempt to undermine it, and to take the critical but hopeful stance that, though things may not end well, we must continue hoping that they might. Taking this stance seriously requires that we spend much more time focusing on those who actually attempt to realize democratic nonexclusion through conflict, agitation, and the collective project of building and sustaining our world. – Rochelle Duford, Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (2022) Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford UP, 2022), Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. Nathan Rochelle Duford is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, and is currently working on an essay on political epistemology as well as a book proposal investigating the idea of sex, gender and sexuality in the early Frankfurt School. Keith Krueger lectures at the SILC Business School in Shanghai University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This two-part episode discusses the work of Saul Alinsky, the “dean of community organizing,” and the different traditions and influences that shaped his democratic vision. The key texts discussed are his two books: “Reveille for Radicals” published in 1946, and his more well known later book, “Rules for Radicals,” written in 1971. In this first part of this two part episode I discuss Alinsky, his writings, and his legacy with Amanda Tattersall. Amanda currently directs the Policy Lab at Sydney University. With a background in social movements as well as union organizing, she was inspired by reading Alinsky to set up Sydney Alliance, a community organizing coalition in her hometown. Since doing that, she has helped develop a number of other initiatives to craft creative, democratic responses to endemic problems.Guest:Amanda Tattersall is an Associate Professor at Sydney University and a community organiser. She established community organising in Australia founding the Sydney Alliance, and also co-founded GetUp Australia's largest digital campaigning organisation. She currently uses her community organising experience to lead relationship-driven research with the Sydney Policy Lab on issues like climate change and mental illness. She also hosts the ChangeMakers Podcast.  

With Jed Atkins, I discuss Thucydides understanding of politics, how he has shaped the history of political thought, and the context for him writing "The History of the Peloponnesian War." We then focus on a passage from "The History" known as the Athenian-Melian dialog, reflecting together on the ways this dialogue frames the relationship between power and politics. In the second part, I discuss with Anna Eng why the dialogue is drawn on by community organizers to teach democratic politics and how she uses the dialog in trainings.Guests:Jed Atkins is the E. Blake Byrne Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Duke University. He is chair of the Classical Studies Department and Faculty Director of Transformative Ideas and the Civil Discourse Project in the Kenan Institute of Ethics. A scholar of Greek, Roman, and early Christian political theory, he is the author of “Cicero on Politics” and the “Limits of Reason; Roman Political Thought;” and (with Thomas Bénatouïl) editor of “The Cambridge Companion to Cicero's Philosophy.”Anna Eng is the lead organizer of Nevadans for the Common Good, an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Originally from Portland, Oregon, she has organized for over 20 years in California, Texas and Nevada. 

Dr. Rikki Dean is post-doctoral fellow at the research unit for Democratic Innovations at the Institute of Political Science at FB 03. In his research, Rikki is interested in the empirical research on democracy. He seeks to combine democratic theory and public administration theory with empirical social science to understand issues in participatory governance. Prior to joining the institute of political science at Goehte, he completed his PhD at the London School of Economics on the topic of "Democratising Bureaucracy", and worked at several universities in the UK, including Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford, and Westminster. He has been a visiting fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Innovation and Governance at Harvard University and the Université Libre in Brussels. He's just returned to Frankfurt from Brussels and is currently focusing on projects about what citizens and other political actors want democracy to look like, and how citizen deliberation can be integrated into political institutions. Literature Afsahi, Afsoun, Emily Beausoleil, Rikki Dean, Selen A. Ercan, and Jean-Paul Gagnon. 2020. “Democracy in a Global Emergency: Five Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Democratic Theory 7 (2): v–xix. https://doi.org/10.3167/dt.2020.070201 Dean, Rikki J. 2017. “Beyond Radicalism and Resignation: The Competing Logics for Public Participation in Policy Decisions.” Policy & Politics 45 (2): 213–30. https://doi.org/10.1332/030557316X14531466517034 ———. 2018. “Counter-Governance: Citizen Participation Beyond Collaboration.” Politics and Governance 6 (1): 180–88. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v6i1.1221 Gilens, Martin, and Benjamin I. Page. 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12 (03): 564–81. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595 Gough, Ian. 2017. Heat, Greed and Human Need: Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing. Heat, Greed and Human Need. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781785365102/chapter01.xhtml McCormick, John P. 2011. Machiavellian Democracy. Cambridge University Press.Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations. Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511609848 Vergara, Camila. 2020. Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic. Princeton University Press. Winters, Jeffrey A., and Benjamin I. Page. 2009. “Oligarchy in the United States?” Perspectives on Politics 7 (04): 731–51. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592709991770 Erfahrt mehr über uns bei Instagram oder Twitter @talksoscience und auf unserer Website

In our second interview of the Is School Good? series, Sparky and Pete are joined by Derek Gottlieb, assistant professor at the University of Northern Colorado Shool of Teacher Education and author of the book "A Democratic Theory of Educational Accountability: From Test-Based Assessment to Interpersonal Responsibility," to ask one of the biggest questions they can ask: what is school for? How do our methods of schooling reflect our politics and our ideas of what 'a good life' can be?Derek Gottlieb's books, including 2020's "A Democratic Theory of Educational Accountability: From Test-Based Assessment to Interpersonal Responsibility", can be purchased here.This episode was edited by Dan Thorn (@danieljtvthorn) of Pink Noise Studios in Somerville, MA, and it features theme music by Danny Bradley. If you liked the podcast, please consider supporting our investigations on our Patreon.

With the EU moving forward with the new Digital Services Act, in today's episode of the RevDem Rule of Law podcast, our assistant editor Alexander Lazović sits down with Moritz Schramm to talk about the connections between digital constitutionalism, the Rule of Law, the role of court-like settlement bodies, and democratic participation in the digital sphere. Moritz is PhD researcher at the DFG Graduate Program 'Dynamische Integrationsordnung (DynamInt)' at the Humboldt-University of Berlin and recently published an article on The Digital Constitutionalist platform entitled ‘Where is Olive? Or: Lessons from Democratic Theory for Legitimate Platform Governance'.

A discussion with Deva Woodly, who teaches in the Department of Politics at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where she also directs the Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence. Deva has published widely on democratic theory and practice, focusing on the function of public meaning formation and its effect on self- and collective-understanding of the polity, employing multiple methods to understand the power of discourse in shaping democratic life. She is the author of The Politics of Common Sense: How Social Movements Use Public Discourse to Change Politics and Win Acceptance, published in 2015 by Oxford University Press, as well as Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements, also published by Oxford University Press in late-2021 and is the occasion for our conversation today. This podcast explores the origins of the project, the role of social movements in democratic life, the location of knowledge production in conversation and discussion, the future of Black liberation struggle, and the critical function of radical Black feminist pragmatism in thinking through our moment. Cover art by Kei Williams, which gets some discussion in this conversation.

My guest today is Rob Reich. Rob is a political science and philosophy professor at Stanford University. He is the Director of Stanford's McCoy Centre for Ethics and Society and Associate Director of Stanford's Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence. Rob is also the author of "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better", and the co-author of "System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot", "Digital Technology and Democratic Theory", "Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values" and many more.We talk about the culture of Silicon Valley, the problem with optimization, the externalities caused by Big Tech, and the problem of censorship by Big Tech. We also go on to discuss artificial intelligence, the famous "Experience Machine" thought experiment, and much more. 

My guest today is Rob Reich. Rob is a political science and philosophy professor at Stanford University. He is the Director of Stanford's McCoy Centre for Ethics and Society and Associate Director of Stanford's Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence. Rob is also the author of "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better", and the co-author of "System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot", "Digital Technology and Democratic Theory", "Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values" and many more.We talk about the culture of Silicon Valley, the problem with optimization, the externalities caused by Big Tech, and the problem of censorship by Big Tech. We also go on to discuss artificial intelligence, the famous "Experience Machine" thought experiment, and much more. 

My guest today is Rob Reich. Rob is a political science and philosophy professor at Stanford University. He is the Director of Stanford's McCoy Centre for Ethics and Society and Associate Director of Stanford's Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence. Rob is also the author of "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better", and the co-author of "System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot", "Digital Technology and Democratic Theory", "Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values" and many more. We talk about the culture of Silicon Valley, the problem with optimization, the externalities caused by Big Tech, and the problem of censorship by Big Tech. We also go on to discuss artificial intelligence, the famous "Experience Machine" thought experiment, and much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of “Keen On”, Andrew is joined by Rob Reich, the author of “System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot”, to expose how big tech's relentless focus on optimization is driving a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes the information we get. Rob Reich is professor of political science and, by courtesy, professor of philosophy and at the Graduate School of Education, at Stanford University. He is the director of the Center for Ethics in Society and co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review), and associate director of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. His scholarship in political theory engages with the work of social scientists and engineers. His next book is Digital Technology and Democratic Theory (edited with Helene Landemore and Lucy Bernholz, University of Chicago Press). He is the author of Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values (edited with Chiara Cordelli and Lucy Bernholz, University of Chicago Press, 2016). He is also the author of several books on education: Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and Education, Justice, and Democracy (edited with Danielle Allen, University of Chicago Press, 2013). Reich is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Walter J. Gores award, Stanford's highest honor for teaching. He was a sixth grade teacher at Rusk Elementary School in Houston, Texas before attending graduate school. He is a board member of the magazine Boston Review, of Giving Tuesday, and at the Spencer Foundation. Visit our website: https://lithub.com/story-type/keen-on/ Email Andrew: a.keen@me.com Watch the show live on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajkeen Watch the show live on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankeen/ Watch the show live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lithub Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiteraryHub/videos Subscribe to Andrew's newsletter: https://andrew2ec.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Bird's Eye, Harry and Philip explore the basics of democratic theory and liberal democracy, explaining what you need to know and why it's useful. -- Further Reading: Polyarchy, by Robert A. Dahl. "Trust, Well-Being, and Democracy," by Ronald Inglehart, in Democracy and Trust, edited by M.E. Warren. "The Pipe Dream of Undemocratic Liberalism," by Sheri Berman, in Journal of Democracy. Politics and Markets, by Charles Lindblom.

RockerMike and Rob Presents: Jeff Wengrofsky. Jeffrey Wengrofsky directs and produces the Syndicate. His films have screened internationally and across the US.  (Consult Futurology page for details).  He's created a film festival a year for each of the past nine years – Secrets of Outer Space, Secrets of Inner Space, Secrets of the Deep: Dreams on Film, Secrets of the Insect World, Secrets of the Intoxicated Life, Secrets of the Heart, Secrets of the Dead I & II, and Secret Treaties.  Wengrofsky has taught at New York University, The New School, and Rutgers University, and has worked for Aperture Photography Magazine, Coilhouse Magazine, Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, and the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School. His 50+ publications include tasty bits in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Maximumrocknroll, Trebuchet Magazine (UK), Cold Lips (UK), and Ozy. Wengrofsky also hosted Gift Horse: Inside New York Art, a weekly podcast series about the creative process, transmitted by Radio Initiativa (Lviv, Ukraine), for two seasons. He's made faces in films by Mars Roberge and Gail Thacker, and in live theater produced by Cynthia von Buhler and the World/Inferno Friendship Society. His first feature film, The Song of Hiawatha: A Trip in the American Counterculture, is in post-production and he has edited a book on mysticism in Aristotle now under review by the University of Toronto Press. http://www.humansyndicate.com http://humanfeaturesfilm.com/ https://www.facebook.com/les.syndicat https://www.filmnoircinema.com/ Filmmaker: new film coming out Sat June 12 at Film Noir Cinema in Brooklyn Secret Treaties: Strange Political Bedfellows. Secret Treaties: Strange Political Bedfellows – the world's most dangerous film festival – premiered at Film Noir Cinema (122 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn) on Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 9pm. Tickets $10 21+/ID.  Alcohol and other refreshments were available to the initiated.  The program included: Christopher Beaubien, Carey Burtt, Robert Howat, Kevin Daniel Lonano, Alfonso ‘Cronopio' Moreno, Stefan Perez, Natasa Prosenc Stearns, Jeffrey Wengrofsky, and Jason Younkman. What we do is secret.    This screening is dedicated to our fallen friend and co-conspirator, Leslie Barany (1947-2021). https://www.hrgiger.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/arts/music/jack-terricloth-dead.html Jack Terricloth I sing in The World Inferno Friendship Society. We're a sweet gang of dangerous loonies consisting of girls and boys who play a brand of beautiful orchestrated Punk Rock that frequently inspires circle pits. We are based in Brooklyn, NY but really from all over the damn place. Really, you name it. maybe no Austrailians? I'm sure one will come along. I'm from Jersey originally anyway and in fact standing there now. jswengrofsky@yahoo.com To contact Jeff Wengrofsky #filmmakers #filmmaker #moviereview #movies #movie #movienight #moviescenes #moviestar #moviequotes Please follow us on Youtube,Facebook,Instagram,Twitter,Patreon and at www.gettinglumpedup.com https://linktr.ee/RobRossi Get your T-shirt at https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/gettinglumpedup And https://www.bonfire.com/store/getting-lumped-up/ https://app.hashtag.expert/?fpr=roberto-rossi80 https://dc2bfnt-peyeewd4slt50d2x1b.hop.clickbank.net https://8bcded2xph1jdsb8mqp8th3y0n.hop.clickbank.net/?cbpage=nb Subscribe to the channel and hit the like button --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rob-rossi/support https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-lumped-up-with-rob-rossi/id1448899708 https://open.spotify.com/show/00ZWLZaYqQlJji1QSoEz7a https://www.patreon.com/Gettinglumpedup --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rob-rossi/support

This is a conversation with Rim-Sarah Alouane. She's a French legal academic, commentator, and PhD candidate in law researching religious freedom, human rights, and civil liberties in France, Europe & North America. We spoke about a recent piece she wrote entitled ‘A Spectre in France's Public Debate: Islamo-Leftism‘ for Reset Dialogues. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed What the fuck is ‘Islamo-leftism' How fringe conspiracy theories are being mainstreamed in France The role of anti-American sentiments in propagating these phenomena Understanding the specificity of French laicité/secularism The youth being more comfortable with multi-culturalism, which is provoking a conservative backlash The slippery slope of what's being normalized (including security laws) The links between antisemitism and islamophobia, in terms of political rhetoric especially The legacy of colonial thinking The personal cost of rising authoritarianism in France Recommended Books Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies by Nader Hashemi Illégitimes by Nesrine Slaoui Les Incasables by Rachid Zerrouki Episodes mentioned: 67/ Cultural Dementia: How the West Lost Its History and Risks Losing Everything Else (with David Andress) 69/ The Entrenched “Manliness” of Ethnic Power-sharing Peace Agreements (with Aida A. Hozić) Music by Tarabeat.

Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) contains a famous, and minimal, definition of democracy as the competition between political elites to sell themselves to the electorate. Schumpeter wanted to debunk more elevated ideas of the common good and the popular will. Why then has his theory proved so influential for people who want to rescue democracy as much as those who want to diminish it?Recommended version to buyGoing Deeper:Ian Shapiro, The State of Democratic Theory (2006)Thomas K. McCraw, Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction (2007)Jill Lepore, ‘The Disruption Machine, New Yorker (2014)(Audio): Creative Destruction, BBC Radio 4 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Data & Society and Stanford PACS host a special book launch: One of the most far-reaching transformations in our era is the wave of digital technologies rolling over—and upending—nearly every aspect of life. Work and leisure, family and friendship, community and citizenship have all been modified by now-ubiquitous digital tools and platforms. Digital Technology and Democratic Theory looks closely at one significant facet of our rapidly evolving digital lives: how technology is radically changing our lives as citizens and participants in democratic governments.To understand these transformations, this book brings together contributions by scholars from multiple disciplines to wrestle with the question of how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democracy and democratic theory. As expectations have whiplashed—from Twitter optimism in the wake of the Arab Spring to Facebook pessimism in the wake of the 2016 US election—the time is ripe for a more sober and long-term assessment. How should we take stock of digital technologies and their promise and peril for reshaping democratic societies and institutions? To answer, this volume broaches the most pressing technological changes and issues facing democracy as a philosophy and an institution.Speaker BiosRobyn Caplan | @robyncaplanRobyn Caplan is a Researcher at Data & Society, and a PhD Candidate at Rutgers University (ABD, advisor Philip M. Napoli) in the School of Communication and Information Studies. She conducts research on issues related to platform governance and content standards. Her most recent work investigates the extent to which organizational dynamics at major platform companies impacts the development and enforcement of policy geared towards limiting disinformation and hate speech, and the impact of regulation, industry coordination, and advocacy can play in changing platform policies.Her work has been published in journals such as First Monday, Big Data & Society, and Feminist Media Studies. She has had editorials featured in The New York Times, and her work has been featured by NBC News THINK and Al Jazeera. She has conducted research on a variety of issues regarding data-centric technological development in society, including government data policies, media manipulation, and the use of data in policing.Lucy Bernholz | @p2173Lucy Bernholz is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab. She has been a Visiting Scholar at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, the Hybrid Reality Institute, and the New America Foundation. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including the annual Blueprint Series on Philanthropy and the Social Economy, the 2010 publication Disrupting Philanthropy, and her 2004 book Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets: The Deliberate Evolution. She is a co-editor of Philanthropy in Democratic Societies (2016, Chicago University Press) and of the forthcoming volume Digital Technology and Democratic Theory. She writes extensively on philanthropy, technology, and policy on her award winning blog, philanthropy2173.com.She studied history and has a B.A. from Yale University, where she played field hockey and captained the lacrosse team, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.Rob Reich | @robreichRob Reich is professor of political science and, by courtesy, professor of philosophy at the Graduate School of Education, at Stanford University. He is the director of the Center for Ethics in Society and co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review), both at Stanford University. He is the author most recently of Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values (edited with Chiara Cordelli and Lucy Bernholz, University of Chicago Press, 2016). He is also the author of several books on education: Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and Education, Justice, and Democracy (edited with Danielle Allen, University of Chicago Press, 2013). His current work focuses on ethics, public policy, and technology, and he serves as associate director of the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence initiative at Stanford. Rob is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Walter J. Gores award, Stanford's highest honor for teaching. Reich was a sixth grade teacher at Rusk Elementary School in Houston, Texas before attending graduate school. He is a board member of the magazine Boston Review, of Giving Tuesday, and at the Spencer Foundation. More details at his personal webpage: http://robreich.stanford.eduSeeta Peña GangadharanDr Seeta Peña Gangadharan is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work focuses on inclusion, exclusion, and marginalization, as well as questions around democracy, social justice, and technological governance. She currently co-leads two projects: Our Data Bodies, which examines the impact of data collection and data-driven technologies on members of marginalized communities in the United States, and Justice, Equity, and Technology, which explores the impacts of data-driven technologies and infrastructures on European civil society. She is also a visiting scholar in the School of Media Studies at The New School, Affiliated Fellow of Yale Law School's Information Society Project, and Affiliate Fellow of Data & Society Research Institute.Before joining the Department in 2015, Seeta was Senior Research Fellow at New America's Open Technology Institute, addressing policies and practices related to digital inclusion, privacy, and “big data.” Before OTI, she was a Postdoctoral Associate in Law and MacArthur Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project. She received her PhD from Stanford University and holds an MSc from the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science.Seeta's research has been supported by grants from Digital Trust Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Stanford University's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and U.S. Department of Commerce's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.Archon Fung | @ArfungArchon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. 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 Transparency Policy Project and leads democratic governance programs of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School. His books include Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency (Cambridge University Press, with Mary Graham and David Weil) and Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton University Press). He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two S.B.s — in philosophy and physics — and his Ph.D. in political science from MIT.

Why are political parties important for liberal democracy? Which institutional reforms can alleviate the burdens of globalisation on the working class? Join us on this episode of the Governance Podcast for a conversation between Steven Klein (King's College London) and Ian Shapiro (Yale) on the major governance challenges facing advanced democracies and how they might be solved. Subscribe on iTunes and Spotify Subscribe to the Governance Podcast on iTunes and Spotify today and get all our latest episodes directly in your pocket. Follow Us For more information about our upcoming podcasts and events, follow us on facebook, twitter or instagram (@csgskcl). Read the Books The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It by Ian Shapiro and Michael J. Graetz Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy From Itself by Ian Shapiro and Frances McCall Rosenbluth  The Guest Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He has written widely and influentially on democracy, justice, and the methods of social inquiry. A native of South Africa, he received his J.D. from the Yale Law School and his Ph.D from the Yale Political Science Department where he has taught since 1984 and served as chair from 1999 to 2004. Shapiro also served as Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies from 2004-2019. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Shapiro is a past fellow of the Carnegie Corporation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has held visiting appointments at the University of Cape Town, Keio University in Tokyo, and Nuffield College, Oxford.  His most recent books are The Real World of Democratic Theory (Princeton University Press, 2012) Politics Against Domination (Harvard University Press, 2016), and, with Frances Rosenbluth, Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself (Yale University Press, 2018). His current research concerns the relations between democracy and the distribution of income and wealth. Skip Ahead 0:42: I wanted to begin with your 2018 book on Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy From Itself, which you co-authored with Frances McCall Rosenbluth. It's a spirited defence of the importance of parties for democracy. Before we get into your argument, I wanted to see if you could say a little about why you think political parties are so vital for democracy, as well as why you think their value tends to be overlooked or neglected in popular debates. 5:33: This is a question of democracy bypassing elections altogether. Another issue you deal with in the book is debates about democratising political parties themselves. So some people say that political parties are necessary evils, or they have these positive effects but they can also lead to capture by elites within the party, and so what we need is good democracy within the parties. And in the book you're also sceptical of that—could you tell us more about your worry? 9:24: This raises a really interesting puzzle which you don't entirely address in the book, which is, if this is so harmful to parties, why do they do it? 13:30: I think another interesting aspect is the decline of the traditional sources of mobilisation for political parties. So one thing I wanted to ask is, there are two dimensions to political parties—one is the coordination function, which is bundling issues together, building those compromises, integrating various interest groups—but parties also exist to get people to vote and to mobilise their constituencies. If you look at the debate in the last two primaries in the Democratic party and in the UK, it seems like one of the issues is how you balance the coordination function while ensuring that the core constituencies of the party will viably vote. And it seems like one of the big stories has been the gradual decline of some of these reliable sources of mobilisation.     17:57: So the book is a defence of parties and you're trying to push back against a lot of scepticism towards political parties—you defend large scale, catch all political parties—your ideal, it seems, is the Westminster, British model where you have large catch all parties who can come into power and govern on their own. You also say some interesting things about coalitions… But there is a worry about political parties in general that I feel doesn't come through in the book… which is that when you have this sort of system, parties have an incentive to take controversial or particularly challenging issues off the political agenda. 28:08: I'm probably slightly more sympathetic to referendums than you because there's an interesting democratic theory puzzle that comes in—so if it's a basic constitutional issue, what other mechanism is there for altering the debate? Would a better designed referendum worked better in the UK? 33:25: This brings us back to what you said earlier and is a theme of your new book, which is that a lot of these changes in the party system are being driven by larger structural changes in the political economy of advanced capitalist societies. 39:16: This is something you mentioned earlier but I wanted to reiterate- there is the insecurity but there is the decline of institutions that would buffer some of that insecurity like labour unions… and you have a lot of disaffected people who have an understandable distrust and distaste for politics in general… they don't have institutions that can connect them with political parties and make them feel like their voice is represented. Then you get the elites trying to figure out how to re-engage those people and they don't have a lot of tools.

Dr. Patricía Rossini, Derby Fellow in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool, discusses her latest research on informal political talk online. We break down differences between incivility and intolerance in online discussions, as well as misinformation sharing across Facebook and WhatsApp. The two studies we discuss in the episode are: Beyond Incivility: Understanding Patterns of Uncivil and Intolerant Discourse in Online Political TalkDysfunctional Information Sharing on WhatsApp and Facebook: The Role of Political Talk, Cross-Cutting Exposure and Social Corrections

Start of interview [1:30]Jim's "origin story" [2:12]How his experience at CalEPA led him to become a shareholder advocate [6:07]His experience with Mark Latham, a former Berkeley Prof and Salomon Brothers banker on developing and promoting a new shareholder proposal method  [8:03]His efforts to get elected to the CalPERS board [11:33]CalPERS and the increasing influence of institutional investors in corporate governance  [12:53]"Thirty years ago no shareholder proposal had ever passed." Last year [McRitchie] filed 50 proposals and in 26 of them he got majority vote or else he worked an agreement with the company. [14:21]His Proxy Access petition to the SEC in 2002 [15:28]Why his friends from social responsible investment (SRI) funds started filing shareholder proposals [16:57]Pax World Funds was the first socially responsible investment fund. "Later on, SRI funds started engagement campaigns." [18:55]"ISS and Glass Lewis don't set the agenda, it's the public opinion that sets the agenda." "ISS is not driving the vote, they simply hold up a mirror to its customers" [20:28]Jim's take on "stakeholder capitalism" and BRT's restatement of the purpose of the corporation. [21:56]Jim's shareholder proposals at BlackRock: His "hypocrisy proposal." [23:46]Jim's approach for his shareholder proposals, and why he's getting majority support. How he compares with John Chevedden and the Steiners. He keeps a spreadsheet with 150 target companies. [25:27]Why he does what he does: "I am really pissed off with all these injustices" [27:20]The influence of the book "A Nation of Small Shareholders" by Janice Traflet (2013) [28:47]The problem of dual class shares [31:15]Jim is taking a page from Elizabeth Warren. He'd like companies to elect a director who can serve  as a liaison to employees ("Rooney rule but including employees"). [32:33]Jim's Rulemaking Petition to the SEC for Real-Time Disclosure of Proxy Votes [34:19]Why he files around 50 shareholder proposals per year [36:14]The impact of COVID-19 on his work, and the advent of virtual shareholder meetings [37:14]"There has been tremendous corporate governance progress on paper (not so much in reality)" [38:22]How his work has enabled hedge funds to go after companies [39:18]His favorite books: [44:42]The Social Construction of Reality (1966) (Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann)Participation and Democratic Theory (1970) (Carole Pateman)Power and Accountability (1992) (Bob Monks and Nell Minow)His favorite study: NSF meta-study from 45 years ago: workplace should be more democratic, employees should have more say. [44:42]The living person he most admires: [48:05] Nell Minow.The people that have most influenced his work: [49:06]Bob MonksNell MinowRich KoppesThe Gilbert brothers.Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License 

President Trump claims that the Covid-19 pandemic justifies “the most sweeping ban on immigration” in all of United States history. Really?   Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Law Professor Ilya Somin, of George Mason University, to discuss immigration, specifically the recent decision by the Trump administration to enact possibly the most sweeping immigration ban in American history.   On June 22nd, President Trump extended a near-total ban -- first announced in April as a temporary ban -- on entry into the U.S. by immigrants seeking “green cards” for permanent residency. In today’s episode, Ilya and Aaron delve into this decision, with Professor Somin claiming the President’s move is political and not rationally based on the pandemic. Ilya argues that President Trump’s executive action is a more sweeping ban on immigration that ever seen before, broader than steps taken during the Great Depression, during both World Wars, or during the and the flu pandemic of 1918-19. What were the President’s true motives? Why does this radical immigration ban actually harm rather than help the economy, in addition to hurting so many individuals and their families?   A graduate of Yale Law, Professor Somin’s areas of expertise are in Constitutional Law, Eminent Domain, Federalism, Political Participation/Political Knowledge and Property Rights and his research focuses on Constitutional Law, Property Law, Democratic Theory, Federalism, and Migration Rights. A successful author, Illya’s most recent book is Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom. His work has also appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Professor Somin has published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, the New York Times Room for Debate Website, CNN, The Atlantic, and more. Professor Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal Courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel.   Just how dangerous are Trump’s Immigration bans? Listen now!     To learn more about Ilya, please visit his bio page here. To check out Professor Somin’s most recent book, Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, please click here. To read the Forbes piece Aaron and Ilya discussed, please click here. To check out Professor Somin’s Atlantic articles, please visit his archive here.   Host: Aaron Freiwald Guest: Ilya Somin   Follow Good Law | Bad Law: YouTube: Good Law | Bad Law Facebook: @GOODLAWBADLAW Instagram: @GoodLawBadLaw Website: https://www.law-podcast.com

Totally Insensitive PodcastEpisode 1 of Season 3. Matt talks Democratic Theory with his long time BFF Aristotle. For script and sources, click here: https://www.insensitivenetwork.com/blogYouTube Video:https://youtu.be/U1yb2AiHiykwww.insensitivenetwork.comGet Exclusive Merch! Follow the link on our website!Support the Show: https://ko-fi.com/maverick_ssggCredits:Matt : Host : CEO of Totally Insensitive Network : Chief Analytics/Brand Officer : Head Editor

In this podcast you will learn - 1. How to choose a career in social sciences? 2. What might politics without politicians look like 3. Practical ways to make democracy more inclusiveHélène Landemore is Associate Professor of Political Science, with Tenure. Her research and teaching interests include democratic theory, political epistemology, theories of justice, the philosophy of social sciences (particularly economics), constitutional processes and theories, and workplace democracy.Her first book (in French) Hume. Probabilité et Choix Raisonnable (PUF: 2004) was a philosophical investigation of David Hume’s theory of decision-making. Her second book (in English) Democratic Reason won the Montreal Manuscript Workshop Award in 2011; the Elaine and David Spitz Prize in 2015; and the 2018 APSA “Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics” section book award. Hélène’s third book–Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century (under contract with Princeton University Press)–develops a new paradigm of democracy in which the exercise of power is as little gated as possible, even as it depends on representative structures to make it possible. In this version of popular rule, power is equally open to all, as opposed to just those who happen to stand out in the eyes of others (as in electoral democracies). The book centrally defends the use of non-electoral yet democratic forms of representation, including “lottocratic,” “self-selected,” and “liquid” representation.Hélène is also co-editor with Jon Elster of Collective Wisdom: Principles and Mechanisms (Cambridge University Press 2012), and is currently working on a new edited volume project on Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, together with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz at Stanford.

Mark Warren is a political scientist based in North America whose original interest in democracy theory broadened to encompass deliberative democracy when he studied the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly in 2004. Mark’s analysis of that case study and all that followed has been extremely influential in the field. In this conversation, Mark wonders aloud about the resistance to using deliberative methods on the part of politicians even though bureaucrats are increasingly seeing their advantages, i.e. to help them do their job better. He cautions deliberative designers to pay close attention to a clear remit and other design options and advises them against convening a mini-public if the design is flawed. Mark is interested in the way that public deliberations can help to overcome the current ‘democratic malaise’. He believes that these methods can help citizens to own their democracy and enable them to work together constructively despite their differences. newDemocracy Foundation R&D Note on Framing the Remit   Music acknowledgement.

In this episode, we talk to philosopher Robert Talisse about his new book Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place. Could it be that our politically polarized and oversaturated environment is undermining our democracy? How has this happened, and are there things that we can do to restore civic friendship and the conditions needed for healthy democracy?

We are joined by PC political science professor, Rick Battistoni, to help define and discuss the meaning of democracy. Dr. Battistoni provides critical insight into the complexities and challenges of democracy today and examines its political significance.

Impeachment moves forward, but what if there's no cover-up or quid pro quo? Plus, Trump calls a whistleblower a "spy." Date: 09-27-2019

Hélène Landemore is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Her research and teaching interests include democratic theory, political epistemology, theories of justice, the philosophy of social sciences (particularly economics), constitutional processes and theories, and workplace democracy. Her first book (in French) Hume. Probabilité et Choix Raisonnable (PUF: 2004) was a philosophical investigation of David Hume’s theory of decision-making. Her second book (in English) Democratic Reason won the Montreal Manuscript Workshop Award in 2011; the Elaine and David Spitz Prize in 2015; and the 2018 APSA “Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics” section book award. Hélène’s third book–Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century (under contract with Princeton University Press)–develops a new paradigm of democracy in which the exercise of power is as little gated as possible, even as it depends on representative structures to make it possible. In this version of popular rule, power is equally open to all, as opposed to just those who happen to stand out in the eyes of others (as in electoral democracies). The book centrally defends the use of non-electoral yet democratic forms of representation, including “lottocratic,” “self-selected,” and “liquid” representation. Hélène is also co-editor with Jon Elster of Collective Wisdom: Principles and Mechanisms (Cambridge University Press 2012), and is currently working on a new edited volume project on Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, together with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz at Stanford. Her articles have been published in, among others, Journal of Political Philosophy; Political Theory; Politics, Philosophy, and Economics; Political Psychology; Social Epistemology; Synthese; the Swiss Review of Political Science: and the Journal of Politics. Her research has been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Review, Slate, and L’Humanité. Before joining Yale, Hélène lectured at Brown University and MIT. She is also an alumna from the Sorbonne, the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm), and Sciences-Po in Paris. In the past Hélène has taught various courses, including “Introduction to Political Philosophy,” “Justice in Western Thought,” “Directed Studies,” “Beyond Representative Government,” “Deliberative Democracy and Beyond,” “Political Epistemology,” and “Political Authority.” In 2014 she won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for her interdisciplinary lecture course “How Do We Choose, and Choose Well.” To learn more about liquid democracy visit http://liquid.us

A conversation with Elizabeth Markovits about her recent book Future Freedoms: Intergenerational Justice, Democratic Theory, and Ancient Greek Tragedy and Comedy (Routledge 2018).

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 participation, new forms of democratic representation, the relationship between civil society and democratic governance, and the corruption of democratic relationships. I’m talking with Mark about, amongst other things, his latest paper entitled A Problem-Based Approach to Democratic Theory.   In this paper, Mark proposes that we focus on a democratic system which delivers three functions: empowered inclusion collective will formation and the ability to make collective decisions. He notes that different democratic practices are better at delivering some of these than others and so we should be looking a mix of practices to complement each other and deliver all three functions. He proposes supplementing and layering innovations on top of electoral democracy to create stronger democracies. Thank you for joining me today. In next week’s episode, I will be talking to Professor Archon Fung about pragmatic democracy and how we might save democracy from ourselves. I hope you’ll join me then.

David Schultz says it's time to fix "Election Law and Democratic Theory".  He says it's broke.  Rev. Demastus talks about an upcoming Men's Conference.  Michio Kaku describes "The Future of the Mind" .   And the knockout game has come to Ames Iowa?

Plato famously argued that democracy is nearly the worst form of government because citizens are decidedly unwise. Many styles of democratic theory have tried to meet Plato’s argument by denying that democracy has anything to do with wisdom. Democracy, such views claim, is simply a matter of representing citizens’ preferences...

Plato famously argued that democracy is nearly the worst form of government because citizens are decidedly unwise. Many styles of democratic theory have tried to meet Plato’s argument by denying that democracy has anything to do with wisdom. Democracy, such views claim, is simply a matter of representing citizens’ preferences in politics, or rather a matter of giving everyone equal input into the decision making process. But even these minimal conceptions of democracy often want to distinguish between “raw” and “enlightened” preferences, thereby smuggling in considerations regarding the wisdom or rationality of democratic citizens. More recent democratic theories have embraced the epistemic aspect of democratic politics, and have tried to show, contra Plato, that citizens are not too unwise for self-government. Some hold that democracy in fact requires very little wisdom, and that citizens generally measure up to democracy’s requirements. Others think that democracy’s epistemic demands are significant, but hold nonetheless that the collective judgment of democracy citizens makes the grade. Democracy, it seems, is intricately entwined with epistemology. In his new book Framing Democracy: A Behavioral Approach to Democratic Theory (Princeton University Press), Jamie Kelly brings empirical results concerning human epistemic abilities to bear on the current field of democracy theory. He argues that our susceptibility to framing effects greatly complicates the story democratic theorists must tell about collective self-government and individual rationality. Kelly thereby provides a much-needed empirical check on the claims democratic theorists make–implicitly or explicitly– about the epistemic powers of citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plato famously argued that democracy is nearly the worst form of government because citizens are decidedly unwise. Many styles of democratic theory have tried to meet Plato’s argument by denying that democracy has anything to do with wisdom. Democracy, such views claim, is simply a matter of representing citizens’ preferences in politics, or rather a matter of giving everyone equal input into the decision making process. But even these minimal conceptions of democracy often want to distinguish between “raw” and “enlightened” preferences, thereby smuggling in considerations regarding the wisdom or rationality of democratic citizens. More recent democratic theories have embraced the epistemic aspect of democratic politics, and have tried to show, contra Plato, that citizens are not too unwise for self-government. Some hold that democracy in fact requires very little wisdom, and that citizens generally measure up to democracy’s requirements. Others think that democracy’s epistemic demands are significant, but hold nonetheless that the collective judgment of democracy citizens makes the grade. Democracy, it seems, is intricately entwined with epistemology. In his new book Framing Democracy: A Behavioral Approach to Democratic Theory (Princeton University Press), Jamie Kelly brings empirical results concerning human epistemic abilities to bear on the current field of democracy theory. He argues that our susceptibility to framing effects greatly complicates the story democratic theorists must tell about collective self-government and individual rationality. Kelly thereby provides a much-needed empirical check on the claims democratic theorists make–implicitly or explicitly– about the epistemic powers of citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plato famously argued that democracy is nearly the worst form of government because citizens are decidedly unwise. Many styles of democratic theory have tried to meet Plato’s argument by denying that democracy has anything to do with wisdom. Democracy, such views claim, is simply a matter of representing citizens’ preferences in politics, or rather a matter of giving everyone equal input into the decision making process. But even these minimal conceptions of democracy often want to distinguish between “raw” and “enlightened” preferences, thereby smuggling in considerations regarding the wisdom or rationality of democratic citizens. More recent democratic theories have embraced the epistemic aspect of democratic politics, and have tried to show, contra Plato, that citizens are not too unwise for self-government. Some hold that democracy in fact requires very little wisdom, and that citizens generally measure up to democracy’s requirements. Others think that democracy’s epistemic demands are significant, but hold nonetheless that the collective judgment of democracy citizens makes the grade. Democracy, it seems, is intricately entwined with epistemology. In his new book Framing Democracy: A Behavioral Approach to Democratic Theory (Princeton University Press), Jamie Kelly brings empirical results concerning human epistemic abilities to bear on the current field of democracy theory. He argues that our susceptibility to framing effects greatly complicates the story democratic theorists must tell about collective self-government and individual rationality. Kelly thereby provides a much-needed empirical check on the claims democratic theorists make–implicitly or explicitly– about the epistemic powers of citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While Europeans talk about the “mnemonic age” and the obsession with the past around the globe, Russians complain about the historical “amnesia” in their country. My current project reveals that Russian authors and filmmakers have been obsessed by the work of mourning. They do so in novels, films, and other forms of culture that reflect, shape, and possess people’s memories. I believe that the asymmetry of Memory Studies across Europe should be understood as a political challenge rather than a natural divide. Russia’s leaders are shifting the country’s ‘chosen trauma’ away from the crimes of Stalinism to the collapse of the USSR, which Vladimir Putin called ‘the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century’. This shift at once casts the millions of victims of Soviet terror as unworthy of mourning (or ‘ungrievable,’ in Judith Butler’s parlance) and invites Russians to mourn the state that murdered them. The uncanny scenery of post-Soviet literature and film signals the failure of other, more conventional ways of understanding social reality. This failure and this scenery are nothing new, though post-Soviet conditions exacerbated the wild character of these phantasms. No Iron Curtain has separated Russians from their past. The trauma of the Great Terror of the 1930s, which was essentially a collective suicide of the political and cultural elite of the country, produced cyclical after-shocks that marked the subsequent decades of Russian history. From the return of the Gulag prisoners in the 1950s to the first dissidents of the 1960s, to the grand Soviet film-making of the 1970s, to the archival revelations of the 1980s, to what I call the “magical historicism” of post-Soviet culture, the ghosts of Stalinism and its victims have been stubbornly haunting Russian culture. Inhabiting culture as their ecological niche, the undead constitute a particular kind of collective memory, which becomes prominent when more reliable forms of this memory, such as museums, monuments, or historical textbooks, betray the dead. Etkind is MAW Project Leader and Principal Investigator and Reader in Russian Literature and Cultural History in the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. His current research interests include internal colonization in the Russian Empire, narratology from Pushkin to Nabokov and comparative studies of cultural memory. He is author of "Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror"; "Constellations. An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory" (16/1 (2009): 182-200); Bare Monuments to Bare Life: The Soon-to-Be-Dead in Arts and Memory in "Gulag Studies" (Volume1, 2008: 27-33); "Soviet Subjectivity: Torture for the Sake of Salvation?" in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History" (6, 1 winter 2005: 171-186); Eros of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (translated by Noah and Maria Rubens), published in Russian and translated into French, German, Swedish, Hungarian, Serbian and Bulgarian. Dr. Etkind's current group project is Memory at War, an international collaborative project investigating the cultural dynamics of the "memory wars" currently raging in Poland, Russia and Ukraine. Employing a collaborative methodology grounded in the analytical and critical practices of the humanities, the project seeks to explore how public memory of 20th century traumas mediates the variety of ways in which East European nations develop in post-socialist space. The University of Cambridge is leading this project, which will be accomplished in association with the Universities of Bergen, Helsinki, Tartu and Groningen. The project was launched in 2010 and will run for three years.