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Suppose an island appears in the Pacific Ocean. An island that has never existed before. Many people of the world decide to settle it, until it has a similar population and settlement pattern to New Zealand. We can guess that the islanders would want their own government. They would want it to be democratic. And…
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What a fitting cover! The title Against Elections: The Case for Democracy (2013) may sound like a contradiction to most people. It shouldn’t be. In the Western world, we have an ingrained view that “democracy = elections”. But David Van Reybrouck, a Belgian historian and author, makes a provocative but strong case in this book…
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A few weekends ago, I went on a walking tour of central with Bella Roberts from Antiparty, a group dedicated to envisioning democracy without the party system of today – something I have independently concluded myself. They are particularly interested in sortition, deliberative democracy and giving power to local communities. As they put it: We…
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A protest against the killing of Renee Good last Wednesday, only hours after it happened. The 2010s saw more people take part in political protests than any decade before. The 2020s are shaping up to be bigger still — on the day I write this, the US is facing another big wave of protests over…
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When confronted with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, John F. Kennedy had on his mind a book that he had recently read. It was The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman’s newly-published and now-classic account of how the European powers blundered into the First World War. Kennedy was impressed by the book and encouraged many…
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In the summer of 1914 most of Europe plunged into a war so catastrophic that it unhinged the continent’s politics and beliefs in a way that took generations to recover from. The disaster terrified its survivors, shocked that a civilization that had blandly assumed itself to be a model for the rest of the world…
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When people come together in small groups to discuss what matters to their community. I’ve been reading lately about the French Revolution and seeing so many parallels to politics today, from the fracturing and paralysis of the elites to the weather problems. Are we on the cusp of a revolution? It is hard to say.…
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In April 2012, Bill Shorten, a minister in the Australian government, gave an interview that drew unusually wide attention, and has occasionally been circulated since. The topic was about Peter Slipper, the parliamentary speaker who had temporarily left his post in light of allegations of sexual abuse. Shorten was asked whether Slipper should return to…
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The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony is an excellent guide to humans’ powerful group instincts, written by psychologists Jay Van Bavel and Dominic J. Packer. Our group instincts drive us to work together in groups and have underpinned all of our greatest achievements, from…
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And now for something a little different, a bit of satire that builds on a point I made in an earlier post. Anne, the new treasurer, is presenting her first budget to the club board. “…For too long, Sandford Tennis Club has been let down by a leaky roof. During their long rule, the Tennis…
Assembly Project 