WORLD FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY at THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE Strasbourg 2012 BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN OLD MODELS AND NEW REALITIES. May I start by thanking our hosts, the Council of Europe for making this conference a reality, allowing us all to share our experiences on this important topic. I’ll open with a definition of...Continue reading
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Published 13 February 2012 | St. James Ethics Centre – IQ2 Oz Why should we assume that democracy is the best of all political systems? Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Middle East demanding freedom and democracy. And countless numbers have been prepared to die in exercising these demands....
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist, created the world-wide-web, out of frustration; he was frustrated by the existing communication devices, as he wanted to collaborate with his colleagues around the world. You will all remember the ubiquitous fax machine. With the launch of the web, a new era of communication and collaboration was...Continue reading
MARK COLVIN: They call it Democracy Plan B – and they’re launching it at an event in Sydney tonight. They’re a group called the newDemocracy Foundation, which has been working for some years to break down some of the worst aspects of Australian political life and build something more constructive. It’s backed by former State...Continue reading
Professor Lyn Carson from the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney talks about using deliberative democracy to solve the world’s ‘wicked problems’. Transcript Robyn Williams: Australian politics now resembles a football match out of control. One huge punch-up, with the referee powerless (very nearly off the field) and the...Continue reading
Natural intelligence…a cogent stream of good sense for a colony of living organisms. ‘One of the popular misconceptions about honey bees is that their lives are ruled by a queen — or perhaps by even some more fanciful system. But in the forty years that I’ve spent studying bees, I’ve learned that their colonies are...Continue reading
Yves Sintomer Published in Constellations Volume 17, No 3, 2010. 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Abstract: This paper explores the rationale for – and contemporary examples of – the use of stratified random selection to achieve descriptively representative mini-publics for the purpose of citizen deliberation. Full Research Paper
In February 2009, a group of 150 randomly-selected Australian citizens were brought together at Old Parliament House in Canberra. Called “The Citizens Parliament”, the group spent four days discussing politics, policy, and systems of parliament. While the specific subjects under consideration were not prescribed, the attendees were asked to address the broad question: “How Can...