How to Fix Democracy

What is Global Citizenship? | Nanjala Nyabola is a writer, political analyst, and activist based in Nairobi, Kenya. In this interview, she talks with host Andrew Keen about the meaning of citizenship especially in relation to global citizenship. If citizenship is related to rights and freedoms in a country, she says, global citizenship means enjoying similar rights and freedom around the world. In reality, as they cover in this fascinating interview, this is a luxury of the few, not the many, and the walls are only getting higher thanks to ethnic nationalist influences resurfacing in politics in various countries around the world.

Devil's Curse of Migration

Abdul-Rehman Malik is a journalist, community organizer, and Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Yale Divinity School. Malik and host Andrew Keen address the contradictions of belonging and inclusion. Migrants, they discuss, face these contradictions constantly, seeking belonging in their new homes, but not excluding their own multifaceted identities. If there is a principal Muslim virtue that can aid conceptions of citizenship and fix democracy, Malik concludes, it is mercy--the compassion, empathy, and vitality that holds communities together.

Democracy, Citizenship, and Dystopian Fiction

Margaret Atwood is an award-winning author, who has written numerous best-sellers including the 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale. In this episode, she discusses with Andrew Keen her impressions of citizenship and the importance of fiction writers in a democracy. Dystopias, Atwood says, show us the future if we do not correct the mistakes of the present, and so writers of dystopian fiction aid democracies by showing the consequences of inaction.

Can America Lead Again?

Tom Malinowski is the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 7th congressional district and was formerly the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Obama administration. He and host Andrew Keen discuss the stature of American democracy today in light of the Biden administration's proposed global Summit for Democracy. Representative Malinowski also discusses his personal story of immigration to America and what it means to be an American citizen.

Smart Cities, Smart Citizens?

Bianca Wylie is co-founder of Digital Public, co-founder of Tech Reset Canada, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. In this episode, she discusses with Andrew Keen the architecture and geography of citizenship from our countries and cities to cyberspace. She argues that digital technology has blurred the lines between public and private spheres with adverse effects for citizenship and democracy. The solution lies with the state, Wylie says, which needs to take responsibility for understanding and shaping technology's impact on society.

Active, Equal, and Collective

Richard Bellamy is Professor of Political Science at University College London and the author of Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction. For him, being a citizen today is being an "active and equal participant in sustaining cooperative and collective goods in your political community." However, the current idea of citizenship contains paradoxes, faces challenges, and is in constant flux. Bellamy and host Andrew Keen explore the whole picture of citizenship as it has been and as it is today.

Citizenship and Belonging

Adrienne Clarkson is the co-founder of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the former Governor General of Canada. Madame Clarkson tells host Andrew Keen her story of coming to Canada, learning what it was to be Canadian, and her journey to becoming Governor General of the country. Along the way, she formed important ideas of what citizenship and belonging means in Canada and around the world.

The Contradictions of Human Nature

Adam Hochschild is an award-winning author, historian, and journalist. In this interview, hosted by Andrew Keen, he discusses the contradictions within the history of democracy in Europe and America. Hochschild points out that capability of democracies to wage war, torture, and enslave people abroad, while aspiring to uphold enlightened values at home. Beyond historical examples, Hochschild and Keen examine how capitalism and inequality contribute to unfulfilled democratic aspirations today.

Human Capital-ism

Daniel Markovits is Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In this interview with Andrew Keen, he explains how the accumulation of human capital--the skills and education that enable advanced economies--has been captured by the elites. But, he argues, because these skilled workers in fields like law and finance are also laborers, they find themselves alienated in the Marxist sense, despite also achieving higher and higher incomes. To help fix democracy, Markovits says, this concentration of human capital can be addressed with education and labor reform.

No Nostalgia

Jan Sowa is an Associate Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. In this interview, he explains the Marxist view of capitalism as more than an economic system. The social and cultural aspects of a capitalist system are just as important and have shaped democracy in the modern era. In Sowa's view, democracy must continue to develop beyond its current structures and practices to incorporate new ideas for better representation.