Category: Podcasts

BONUS - Deliberation Culture & Context, Podcasts

Bonus Ep 4 Deliberation Culture Context

January 26, 2018 By No Comments

 Welcome to Episode 4 in this special bonus series of Real Democracy Now! a podcast about Deliberation, Culture and Context.
This bonus series has been made in collaboration with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. In this series, I speak with a number of people who participated in the Centre’s conference in early December 2017 which brought together scholars from around the world to examine the different forms, meanings, and significance associated with deliberation in various cultures and contexts. A copy of the conference program is available here.
 This Conference was supported by John Dryzek’s ARC Laureate Fellowship entitled “Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System.”
 In this episode, I’m speaking with Vijayendra Rao from the World Bank. I spoke with Biju about his paper ‘Deliberative Inequality: A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu’s Village Assemblies‘ which he presented on day two of the conference.
In future episodes in this bonus series, I’ll be speaking to other people who presented at the conference about their papers, as well as some of those who were on the final roundtable, reflecting on the conference overall. I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

BONUS - Deliberation Culture & Context, Podcasts

Bonus Ep3 Deliberation Culture Context

January 9, 2018 By 1 Comment

Welcome to Episode 3 in this special bonus series of Real Democracy Now! a podcast about Deliberation, Culture and Context.

 

This bonus series has been made in collaboration with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra here in Australia. In this series I speak with a number of people who participated in the Centre’s recent conference which brought together scholars from around the world to examine the different forms, meanings, and significance associated with deliberation in various cultures and contexts. A copy of the conference program is available here.

 

This Conference was supported by John Dryzek’s ARC Laureate Fellowship entitled “Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System.”

 

In this episode I’m speaking with Emmanuel Ani from the University of Ghana. I spoke with Emmanuel before the conference about his paper ‘Traditional Roots of Democratic Verbal Discipline: Insights from the Akan of Africa’ which he presented on day two of the conference.

 

In future episodes in this bonus series I’ll be speaking to other people who presented at the conference about their papers, as well as some of those who were on the final roundtable reflecting on the conference overall. I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

BONUS - Deliberation Culture & Context, Podcasts

Bonus Ep2 Deliberation Culture Context

January 4, 2018 By No Comments

This is episode 2 in this special bonus series of Real Democracy Now! a podcast about Deliberation, Culture and Context.

 

This bonus series has been made in collaboration with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra here in Australia.

 

In this series, I speak with a number of people who participated in the Centre’s recent conference which brought together scholars from around the world to examine the different forms, meanings, and significance associated with deliberation in various cultures and contexts. A copy of the conference program is available here.

 

This Conference was supported by John Dryzek’s ARC Laureate Fellowship entitled “Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System.”

 

In this episode, I’m speaking with Professor Melissa Williams from the University of Toronto. Melissa spoke on day one of the conference about ‘Deparochializing Democratic Theory’

 

In future episodes of this bonus series I’ll be speaking to other people who presented at the conference about their papers, as well as some of those who were on the final roundtable reflecting on the conference overall. I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

BONUS - Deliberation Culture & Context, Podcasts

Bonus Ep1 Deliberation Culture Context

January 3, 2018 By No Comments

This is a the first episode in a bonus series of Real Democracy Now! a podcast talking about Deliberation, Culture and Context.
This bonus series has been made in collaboration with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra here in Australia.
In this series I speak with a number of people who participated in the Centre’s recent conference which brought together scholars from around the world to examine the different forms, meanings, and significance associated to deliberation in various cultures and contexts. A copy of the conference program is available here.
This Conference was supported by John Dryzek’s ARC Laureate Fellowship entitled “Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System.”
In this episode, I’m speaking with Jensen Sass one of the conference organisers. Jensen is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance.
In future episodes in this bonus series, I’ll be speaking to people who presented at the conference about their papers, as well as some of those who were on the final roundtable reflecting on the conference overall. These episodes will be released in early 2018. I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

If you would like to read the transcript for this episode please click the link below:

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If you would like a pdf of the transcript of this episode please click the link below:

PDF of TRANSCRIPT

 

Podcasts, Season 3 Elections

3.4 Electoral reform with Dr Alan Renwick

October 27, 2017 By No Comments

Welcome to episode four of season three of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. This episode is also the 43rd episode of the podcast and the first one since the first birthday of the podcast last week. To help celebrate the podcast’s birthday I’d appreciate it if you could share either your favourite episode of the podcast or the podcast generally with someone you think would find it interesting.
Today’s episode is about electoral reform with Dr Alan Renwick, Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit at UCL in London. Alan’s expertise lies mainly in the areas of electoral systems, referendums, and other modes of engaging the public in decision-making processes, such as citizens’ assemblies. His research is comparative: besides the UK, his recent projects have included all European democracies as well as New Zealand, Japan, and Canada. In addition to numerous journal articles, chapters and reports he is the author of two books about electoral reform: A Citizens’ Guide to Electoral Reform and The Politics of Electoral Reform: Changing the Rules of Democracy.
Thanks for joining me today. In the next episode I’ll be talking with Professor Pippa Norris about electoral integrity.
I am currently putting together interviews about electoral systems around the world and so far I’ve interviewed people about India, South and Southern Africa, Australia, Asia and the South Pacific and New Zealand.
I would also like to interview someone about electoral systems in Latin America but have not been successful in finding the right person to do this. If you know someone who you could fill this gap please introduce them to me via email at nivek.thompson@uts.edu.au

Check out this episode!

Podcasts, Season 3 Elections

3.3 Legislature by Lot with Professor John Gastil

October 4, 2017 By 1 Comment

Welcome to episode 3 in Season 3 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. Season 3 is about elections, electoral systems, electoral reform and alternatives. In this episode I’m speaking with Professor John Gastil. John is a Professor in the Communication Arts and Sciences and Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University as well as a Senior Scholar in the McCourtney Institute for Democracy. He studies political deliberation and group decision making across a range of contexts.
Recently John and Erik Olin Wright, as part of the Real Utopias project, held a three-day workshop called Legislature by Lot. Thanks to David Schecter I was able to interview John shortly after this workshop to learn more about what was discussed. Here is a copy of the agenda for the workshop which includes the attendees.
John described this workshop as ‘a deliberation about deliberation’.
John spoke about
  • the origins of the Legislature by Lot workshop [1:32]
  • the different ways to implement sortition (random selection) [3:54]
  • some of the arguments in favour of a legislature selected by lot [5:44]
  • different models of sortition [7:40]
  • responding to criticisms of legislature by lot [10:11]
  • how to design an oversight body to support a legislature selected by lot [14:10]
  • the prospect of institutional change and transition strategies [18:34]
  • moving the agenda of using sortition forward [23:43]
  • how much work is happening around the world to test and promote the use of sortition [28:35]
  • what representation and accountability means for bodies selected by sortition [30:29]
  • deliberation, consensus, contention and voting [34:35 and 38:50]
  • what the workshop agreed on [43:18]
  • what might happen after the workshop: building links between researchers and practitioners [45:34]
  • responses to critiques of empowered mini-publics [49:35]
  • when the book arising from the workshop will be published [53:07]
John mentioned the work of the Sortition Foundation, the newDemocracy Foundation to promote the use of sortition.
Thank you for joining me today. In the next episode I will be speaking to Dr Alan Renwick about electoral reform around the world [54:11].
I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

Podcasts, Season 3 Elections

Legislation by Lot agenda

October 4, 2017 By No Comments
Provisional Schedule of Sessions

All sessions are in the Pyle Center, Room 225

The schedule shows the names of presenters attending the conference, not all the listed authors.

 
Friday, September 15
9:00 – 9:30 Greeting & continental breakfast
 
  Alternative Approaches
9:30-10:20 Graham Smith, “The circumstances of sortition”
10:30-11:20 Andrea Fellicetti, “A bottom-up perspective on sortition as a means of democratization”
11:30-12:20 Jim Fishkin, “Random assemblies for law-making? Prospects and limits”
12:30 – 1:45 LUNCH
  Contexts and Considerations for Implementation
1:45-2:35 Arash Abizadeh, “Representation, bicameralism, and sortition: reconstituting the senate as a randomly selected Citizen Assembly”
2:45-3:35 Raphaël Kies, “A prudential path towards EU sortition and legitimacy”
3:45-4:35 Vincent Jacquet, Christoph Niessen, & Pierre-Etienne Vandamme, “Complementary virtues and competing legitimacies: Inter-chamber relationships in a bicameral elected and sortitioned legislature”
4:45-5:35 Lyn Carson [via Skype], “How to ensure that a randomly-selected legislative chamber functions successfully”
7:00 Dinner at Ichiban, 610 S Park St.
 

Saturday, September 16
9:00-9:30 Coffee, continental breakfast
  The Larger Democratic Reform Agenda
9:30-10:20 Ned Crosby, “Legislatures by lot in the context of major democratic reforms”
10:30-11:20 Yves Sintomer, “From deliberative to radical democracy? Sortition and politics in the 21th century”
11:30-12:20 Tom Malleson, “Radical democracy and the proposal for a legislature by lot”
12:30-1:45 LUNCH
  Design Considerations
1:45-2:35 Tom Arnold, “Lessons from the Irish Constitutional Convention, 2012-14”
2:45-3:35 Dimitri Courant, “Thinking sortition: Modes of selection, deliberative frameworks and democratic principles”
3:45-4:35 David Schecter, “How to design a sortition legislature?”
7:00 Dinner, Erik Wright’s house, 1101 Grant Street
 

(cont on next page)

Sunday, September 17
9:00-9:30 Coffee, continental breakfast
  Moving Beyond Electoral Accountability
9:30-10:20 Brett Hennig, “On democratic representation and accountability”
10:30-11:20 Terrill Bouricius, “Why hybrid bicameralism is not right for sortition”
11:30-12:20 Campbell Wallace, “A ‘pure sortition’ proposal for democracy without elections”
12:30 – 1:45 LUNCH (perhaps sandwiches in the room?)
1:45-3:00 Open discussion and wrap-up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presenters

Andrea Felicetti

Arash Abizadeh

Brett Hennig

Campbell Wallace

Christoph Niessen

David Schecter

Dimitri Courant

Erik Olin Wright

Graham Smith

Jim Fishkin

John Pitseys

Lyn Carson (“Carson”)

Ned Crosby

Pierre-Etienne Vandamme

Raphaël Kies

Terrill Bouricius

Tom Arnold

Tom Malleson

Vincent Jacquet

Yves Sintomer

 

Attending but not writing a paper

Archon Fung

Jane Mansbridge

Podcasts, Season 3 Elections

3.2 Patterns of democracy with Prof Lijphart

September 25, 2017 By No Comments

Welcome to episode 2 of Season 3 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. Season 3 is looking at elections, electoral systems, electoral reform and alternatives.
In today’s episode, I’m talking with Professor Arend Lijphart about his work identifying two main categories of democracies which relate in part to their electoral systems.
Arend is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California. His field of specialisation is comparative politics. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, with the two editions of his Patterns of Democracy from 1984 and 2012 being perhaps his most well-known and the subject of our conversation today.
I spoke with Professor Lijphart about
How he came to devote his life to the detailed empirical analysis of democracy in multiple countries around the world [1.10]
The relationship between his empirical work and his theory around patterns of democracy [5.30]
The variables he uses to demonstrate that consensual democracies outperform majoritarian democracies [18:35 ]
Criticisms that his approach does not apply to developing non-Western democracies [28.10]
In the next episode I’ll be talking to Professor John Gastil, a Professor in the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences at Penn State College of Liberal Arts, about a workshop he recently co-hosted with Erik Olin Wright, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, titled Legislature by Lot [32.37]
I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

Podcasts, Season 3 Elections

3.1 Electoral Systems with Professor David Farrell

September 18, 2017 By No Comments

Thank you for joining me in episode 1 of Season 3 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. Season 3 of the podcast is looking at Elections, electoral systems, electoral reform and alternatives. As you can imagine this is a huge area to cover and I would like to thank Anika Gauja from the University of Sydney who helped me develop a broad structure for this Season.
I’m going to start looking at a few areas at a high level before moving into more detail in areas such as electoral systems around the world, negative campaigning and populism, compulsory vs voluntary voting, the various institutions and actors involved and alternatives to elections, where I’ll look at sortition and digital democracy.
In today’s episode, I’m talking to Professor David Farrell. David is a Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University College Dublin. He is a specialist in the study of parties, elections, electoral systems and members of parliament. His current research focuses on the role of deliberation in constitutional reform processes.
I asked David
How would you define the term ‘electoral system’? [1:45]

How do you approach comparing so many different approaches to electoral systems around the world? [4:20]
How do you characterise different families of electoral systems? [5.00]
Could you provide an overview of the key elements of different electoral systems? [6:00]
How can everyday people evaluate the different options? [15:05]
Are there electoral reforms that warrant serious consideration that are still only theoretical i.e. they haven’t been used anywhere? [20:25]
 What do you think about the idea of using sortition to select a house of review? [22:15]
If you were asked to re-design the Irish electoral system what would it look like? [25:25]

Thank you for joining me today. In next week’s episode I’ll be talking to Emeritus Professor Arend Lijphart about his lifetime’s work. [29:40]
I hope you’ll join me then.

Check out this episode!

One change to democracy, Podcasts

2.18 One change to democracy, part 4

August 7, 2017 By No Comments

Welcome to episode 18 in Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast. This episode is part 4 of the series where my guests share their views in response to the question: If you could change one thing about our system of democracy what would it be? And it is also the last episode in Season 2 about representative democracy. I’ll be taking a break to put together Season 3 looking at Elections, voting and alternatives.
First up let’s hear from Professor Nadia Urbinati‘s response to this question. Nadia is is a Professor of Political Theory and Hellenic Studies at Columbia University. She is a political theorist who specialises in modern and contemporary political thought and the democratic and anti-democratic traditions. I spoke with Nadia about the development of representative democracy in episode 2 of Season 2.
Next is Dr Simon Longstaff is the Executive Director of the Ethics Centre here in Sydney Australia. Simon was my guest in episode 17 of Season 2 talking about the relationship between democracy and ethics.
Lewis Adams who was a juror on the Infrastructure Victoria Citizens’ Jury in 2015 and a guest on Episode 17 in Season 1.
Nancy Thomas is the Director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education in the Jonathan M Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts College. My interview with Nancy will be published in a later season of the podcast.
Helene Landemore is Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Her research interests encompass democratic theory, theories of justice, Enlightenment thinkers, and the philosophy of social sciences.
Jean-Paul Gagnon from the University of Canberra. Jean-Paul is a philosopher of democracy specialising in democratic theory. I spoke with Jean-Paul in Episode 6 in Season 2 about his work identifying the many adjectives associated with democracy.
Harm van Dijk is one of the founders of the G1000 in the Netherlands. I spoke with Harm in Episode 15 in Season 1 about the design of the G1000 there.
The next person to answer the question is Professor James Fishkin who holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy. I spoke with Professor Fishkin about deliberative polling in episode 16 in Season 1.
Andy Holdup who was a member of the Citizens’ Assembly South in Southhampton in the UK in 2015 and also a guest on episode 17 in Season 1.
And finally, we hear from Benjamin Isakhan who is Associate Professor of Politics and Policy Studies and Founding Director of POLIS, a research network for Politics and International Relations in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization at Deakin University, Australia. I spoke with Ben in episode 4 of Season 2 about non-Western democracy.
Thank you for joining me for Season 2 of Real Democracy Now! a podcast, looking at how representative democracy developed and how it operates. I’ll be back with Season 3 on Elections, voting and alternatives in September 2017. If you haven’t yet subscribed to the podcast, I’d suggest you do that now so that when Season 3 starts you’ll automatically have those episodes downloaded onto your podcast app.

Check out this episode!

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