Capitalism has become focused on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and processing – as if the social itself has become the new target of capitalism’s expansion.
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Articles on Democracy Futures
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The people of the Philippines and their president know all too well the hypocrisy of being lectured by the United States about violence, human rights and democracy.
We are witnessing the global rise of populism. Once seen as a fringe phenomenon from another era or only certain parts of the world, populism is a mainstay of politics today across the globe.
To understand Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to power and the public support for killing drug dealers and users, we need to distinguish the empirical from the normative – the ‘what is’ from ‘what should be’.
The value of democracy needs to be restated and defended, rather than presumed. In doing so, there is value in adopting a more tempered stance, one that understands its worth but also its flaws.
Ukraine desperately needs Chinese investment but, like many other countries in this position, this is giving rise to concerns about the consequences for its fragile democracy.
Today’s anarchists should give up the fantasy of ‘abolishing the state’. That simply plays into the agenda of the rich and privileged.
Between institutional collapse and false promises of utopia, people seek to define their own lives and their relations with others by thinking and acting as though power no longer existed.
Liberty is a political matter bound up with institutionalised struggles for equality among individuals, groups, networks and organisations. This is where the cult of the free individual falls down.
If anarchists reject private property and the state, they need to devise alternative, radical practices of power-sharing. Republican constitutionalism offers one way to think about this.
If democracy were an animal, which one would it be? This short play, set in an Australian pub, explores this question to contrast ways we understand democracy and our roles within it.
The Brexit vote was the outcome of the disillusionment and disengagement that have permeated the UK. Many Europeans share that mood, which is why both the UK and EU need radical democratic surgery.
Radical right populists are on the brink of power in Austria and making gains across the region. And the European leaders who once were willing to publicly condemn them are silent now.
The populist appeal of simplistic answers to complex solutions is a challenge for political leaders.There are times when expertise and experience must prevail over the popular mood of the moment.
UK schools introduced citizenship education in 2002, but early gains have been reversed. The state of democracy and the Brexit vote suggest the need for informed citizens has never been greater.
In a world out of balance, one in which arrogance and unaccountability combine in a corrosive synergy, humility can offer a powerful alternative vision of how to approach democratic government.
Democracy did not fail in the Maldives because it clashed with Islam. Instead, a privileged and powerful elite helped topple the elected government, and nations that advocate democratic ideals did little to stop them.
The faultlines in democratic politics are clear. On one side is a system of democracy that is bad at making people feel represented. On the other are anti-politician performers like Donald Trump.
The future of democracy depends on developing a left-wing populism that can revive public interest by mobilising political passions in the fight for an alternative to neoliberal de-democratisation.
Often it has been Ireland’s writers and artists that have called out the hopes and failures of national politics, holding the polity to account in the culture.
Top contributors
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Assistant researcher, University of Sydney
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Research Fellow, University of Exeter, University of Exeter
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Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney
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Professor of Politics, University of Sydney
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Senior lecturer in democracy studies, University of Canberra
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Professor of Politics, University of Bristol
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Professor of Comparative Political Science and Democracy Research at the Humboldt University Berlin; Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network, University of Sydney; Director of Research Unit Democracy: Structures, Performance, Challenges, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
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Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science
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Associate Professor of Politics, Australian Catholic University
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Associate Professor, Australian Catholic University
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Lecturer in Politics, University of Sheffield
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Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney
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Research Fellow, Democracy and Citizen Engagement, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra
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Professor and Chair of Linguistics, University of Sydney
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Professor of History & Head of the National School of Arts, Australian Catholic University
