Podcasts about electoral democracy

'Lottocracy' is a system where political representation is determined randomly. Is this a better system than democracy? We discuss the shortcomings of current electoral democracies, including the influence of media and special interests, and examine innovative models like deliberative democracy and specialized legislative structures. How should we balance between expertise and random selection, and combat elite influence and corruption? [00:00] Introduction to the Thought Experiment [00:52] Moral Obligations in Crisis [05:14] Challenges of Political Institutions [06:51] Electoral Democracy vs. Lottocracy [14:44] Implementing Lottocracy [21:15] Potential Issues and Objections [29:20] Ensuring Representative Participation [36:41] Challenges of Single Party Dominance [37:32] Risks of Random Selection in Politics [38:39] Expertise and Agenda Setting [46:55] Corruption and Influence in Politics [55:34] Social Pressure and Decision Making

An emergency live episode of the Un-Diplomatic podcast. Van explains the situation the Democratic Party faces: who will replace Biden, why it's likely Kamala Harris, why Bernie should be her running mate, and what all that means for foreign policy.Livestream on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSc9-8Qra5w&t=842sUn-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Is Electoral Democracy On Trial In Africa? | The Global Digest S02E03 by Capital FM

In four swing states, some gubernatorial candidates have indicated that they would have refused to certify Biden's 2020 election win. What might those midterms mean for 2024? On Today's Show:Kira Lerner, democracy reporter at States Newsroom, talks about the four swing states with governors races that could upend the 2024 presidential election.

Guest: Laura Stephenson, political science professor, Western University and co-director of the Consortium on Electoral Democracy, 

The real objective of Modi govt's move to link voter ID with Aadhaar doesn't seem to be eliminating bogus voting. Here's why it's also unconstitutional.----more----Read the article here: https://theprint.in/opinion/aadhaar-linkage-can-sink-indias-electoral-democracy-with-voter-profiling-selective-exclusion/786812/

Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI) organised a special lecture by Maj. Gen. Anil Verma (Retd.), Head of ADR, on "Politicising the Pandemic: Impact on Electoral Democracy" on 23rd July 2021. The link to the original talk can be found here.

Canada has had significant vaccine uptake; but even so the Delta variant continues to present serious challenges. So how far are we from the end of the pandemic? We hear from Globe and Mail health columnist Andre Picard; The battle to save two heritage homes in Sandbanks Provincial Park in Prince Edward County was lost. Liz Driver from Save Heritage Sandbanks Homes explains why many residents wanted to see the buildings preserved; Kingston issued a new emergency order to curb parties in the university district following the huge gatherings during orientation week and a rise in COVID cases. We get a student perspective of life on campus and around town from Alyth Roos of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society at Queen's University; It's the end of summer. It's also wasp season. We find out more about the bugs from Tom Onuferko at the Canadian Museum of Nature; Laura Stephenson. teaches political science at Western University in London and is a director of the Consortium on Electoral Democracy. She talks about voter turnout and how conditions created by the pandemic will complicate things for voters; Our Haydn Watters profiles some university students who are also candidates in the federal election.

Marco Rubio once again reveals that "right-wing economic populism" is a sick joke. There's a preview of the interview with Rick Perlstein for GTAA patrons. Daniel Elder is canceled and moves to the right. Luke Savage comes on the show to chat about Barbara Lee's prescient anti-war stance after 9/11 and Victor Bruzzone tries to convince Ben that sortition is better than electoral democracy.Independent creators rely on your support to create the content you want! Support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis. Patrons get a bonus episode every Thursday, access to the Discord server, a “Sopranos” Recap Bonus Episode every month with Mike Recine, Nando Vila, and Wosny Lambre, a monthly Discord Movie Night, and "Discord Office Hours" (regularly scheduled group voice chats).Follow Ben on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenBurgisLike, subscribe, and get notifications on Ben's channel: https://www.youtube.com/BenBurgisGTAAVisit benburgis.com

A new kind of elected leader has emerged across the globe: one who rules with a large parliamentary majority and with a claim to democratic legitimacy, but who uses power to hollow out democracy from the inside. So is such ‘soft authoritarianism’ a new face of electoral democracy? Professor John Keane (University of Sydney) helps us dissect this pervasive pattern of new despotisms and their strategies of rule. Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:•  The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM•  The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD•  The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC•  The Podcast Production Company Earshot StrategiesFollow us on social media!Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_ViennaAlbert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentreSubscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!BIBLIOGRAPHY• The New Despotism. (2020).• Power and Humility: The Future of Monitory Democracy. (2018).• When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: Rethinking Democracy in China. (2017).• Click here to find more of John Keane’s books.GLOSSARYWhat is the new despotism?(00:01:00 or p. 1 in the transcript) With this term John Keane describes governments across the globe that have mastered a combination of political tools threatening the established ideals and practices of power-sharing democracy. Casting doubt on terms like dictatorship, autocracy, fascism, and authoritarianism, Keane makes a case for retrieving the old term “despotism” to make sense of how these regimes function and endure. They mobilize the rhetoric of democracy and win public support for workable forms of government based on patronage, dark money, steady economic growth, sophisticated media controls, strangled judiciaries, dragnet surveillance, and selective violence against their opponents. They cooperate regionally and globally and draw strength from each other’s resources while breeding global anxieties and threatening the values and institutions of democracy.  Source.What is soft authoritarianism?(00:01:00 or p. 2 in the transcript)The term soft authoritarianism is used to describe countries which have multiple parties and elections, but where the regime keeps the media and influential institutions on a short leash, exercising its power behind the ostensive freedom of choice.  Source.What is an autocracy?(00:02:30 or p. 3 in the transcript)Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person, the autocrat, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.Who are Alexei Navalny and Jamal Khashoggi?(00:06:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)Alexei Navalny is a Russian opposition politician and critic of Vladimir Putin who suddenly fell ill in August 2020 during a flight in Russia. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Navalny was exposed to the Novichok nerve agent. Western security agencies believe the Kremlin intended to kill Navalny; meanwhile the Kremlin is denying all accusations and accusing Germany of a “mass disinformation campaign”. Click here and here to learn more.Jamal Khashoggi was a US-based journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's government, who in 2018 was murdered in the country’s consulate in Istanbul by agents of the Saudi government. Learn more.Which incident regarding the Iranian elections 2009 is John Keane referring to?(00:08:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)In 2009 John Keane, Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty were accused by Iranian officials to be acting as CIA and MI-6 agents who were planning to overturn the present regime by means of a ‘velvet counter-revolution’. The accusations happened just a few days after the Iranian elections, which were believed by many to have been rigged and therefore caused huge protests across the country. Click here to learn more on John Keane’s blog.What is a plutocracy?(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)A plutocracy is a country which is ruled by its wealthiest people, or a class of wealthy people who rule a country. Source.What is crony capitalism?(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)An economic system in which family members and friends of government officials and business leaders are given unfair advantages in the form of jobs, loans, etc. Source.What is a poligarch?(00:16:30 or p. 10 in the transcript)The Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar has a name for it: a mafia state.  By Magyar’s definition, the mafia state is run by a clan—a political family—that consists of poligarchs, oligarchs, and stooges. The word “poligarch” combines “political” and “oligarchy”; the poligarchs are first endowed with political power, which they use to procure material wealth. Source.What is a speculative bubble?(00:16:30 or p. 10 in the transcript)A speculative bubble is a spike in asset values that is fueled by speculation as opposed to fundamentals of that asset class. Such a bubble is usually caused by exaggerated expectations of future growth. This speculation drive trading volumes higher, and as more investors rally around the heightened expectation, buyers outnumber sellers, pushing prices beyond what an objective analysis of intrinsic value would suggest. Eventually prices fall back down to normalized levels when the bubble pops: a period of steep decline in prices, during which most investors panic and sell out of their investments. Source.

Some of the most interesting debates on development include the role of democracy in promoting economic growth and then distributing the benefits of growth to achieve poverty reduction. Indeed, some of the questions that have attracted considerably scholarly attention in recent decades include the following: Are certain regimes better able and equipped than others to achieve economic growth? Does democracy work for the poor? Despite considerable research on the topic, the results of the democracy-growth relationship are not always very clear. But there does appear to be stronger linkages between democracy and certain types of development outcomes, including literacy and infant mortality.Guest: Carl Henrik Knutsen is a professor of political science at the University of Oslo. He has for many years studied the democracy-growth linkage and has published extensively on this subject. In a recent piece called the “Business case for democracy”, he argues that democracy works as a safety-net for avoiding the worst possible economic outcomes. And in relation to economic growth, he argues that autocracies have more variation — over countries and across time. Resources:"Democracy and human development: Issues of Conceptualization and Measurement" (2019)"Democracy and economic growth: A Survey of Arguments and Results" (2012)"Why Democracies Outgrow Autocracies in the Long Run: Civil Liberties, Information Flows and Technological Change" (2015)"Reinvestigating the Reciprocal Relationship between Democracy and Income Inequality" (2015)"Party Institutionalization and Welfare State Development" (2019)Varieties of Democracy: Measuring Two Centuries of Political Change (2020)"Gaming Democracy: Elite Dominance during Transition and the Prospects for Redistribution" (2013)Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It (2013)Follow Carl Henrik Knutsen on TwitterFollow Dan Banik and In Pursuit of Development on Twitter 

“This is the most important election of our lifetime” is something we hear every election cycle in this era of hyperpolarization. For this episode, Scott is joined by YouTube essayist and politico, Yusuf Takes, for a discussion of why that statement is true this time, in 2020.

This episode I sit down with Tracy Howard to discuss a variety of issues surrounding the elections process. Tracy is the General Registrar of Voters in Radford, VA. Our discussion ranges from voter suppression to how underfunded elections departments are. Issues surrounding racial discrimination and voting are not thoroughly discussed in this episode, which I regret.

What role do national election commissions play in representative democracy? And, how do we measure an election commission’s independence, transparency, and professionalism? Leaders Voices presents part two of an interview with Prof. Kealeboga Maphunye who is the Inaugural WIPHOLD-Brigalia Bam Chair in Electoral Democracy in Africa at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Prof. Maphunye shares his thoughts on election commissions and the role of the security sector in elections. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Leaders Voices presents part one of an interview with Prof. Kealeboga Maphunye who is the Inaugural WIPHOLD-Brigalia Bam Chair in Electoral Democracy in Africa at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Listen here and learn about what drew Prof. Maphunye to election work and about his views on the role of election observation in ensuring free and fair elections. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nigerians go to the polls on *tomorrow, whoever the electorate vote in has several challenges ranging from insecurity, corruption, high inflation and unemployement. One pressing need for the country's economy is electricity. Half of the country's population has no access to electricity and those who have it experience long black outs. At the moment, Africa's largest oil producer is facing an acute fuel shortage, which is crippling transport and businesses. Dhashen Moodley spoke to Professor Kealeboga Maphunye, WHIPOLD-Brigalia Bam Research Chair in Electoral Democracy at UNISA

The leader of Lesotho's main opposition party has announced a coalition government with smaller parties after Saturday's election had no outright winner. Pakalitha Mosisili of the Democratic Congress said in Maseru he would form a government with former Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing's Lesotho Congress for Democracy and several other smaller parties to gain a majority win. The new coalition has a majority of 61 seats. The Democratic Congress won 47 seats, while Prime Minister Thom Thabane's All Basotho Convention won 46. Sakina Kamwendo spoke to WIPHOLD-Brigalia Bam Chair of Electoral Democracy in Africa, UNISA, Professor Kealeboga Maphunye

Much attention has focused on Mexico's transition to electoral democracy in recent years. But how does it compare with other nations of Latin America? Is it typical of the region, or is it "unique" in specific ways? UC San Diego Professor Peter H. Smith compares Mexico with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala. The results yield insight on the pace of democratization, civil-military relations, party structures, separation of powers, and policy performance. Mexico fares relatively well along a number of key dimensions, argues Smith, and prospects for continuing consolidation of its democracy are surprisingly strong. Series: "Mexico: Twenty Years After NAFTA" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 27721]

Much attention has focused on Mexico's transition to electoral democracy in recent years. But how does it compare with other nations of Latin America? Is it typical of the region, or is it "unique" in specific ways? UC San Diego Professor Peter H. Smith compares Mexico with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala. The results yield insight on the pace of democratization, civil-military relations, party structures, separation of powers, and policy performance. Mexico fares relatively well along a number of key dimensions, argues Smith, and prospects for continuing consolidation of its democracy are surprisingly strong. Series: "Mexico: Twenty Years After NAFTA" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 27721]