Real Democracy Now! a podcast

Albert Dzur and Carolyn Hendriks' book Democracy in Action: Collective Problem Solving in Citizens' Governance Spaces considers a range of citizen initiatives that solve complex problems directly rather than through advocacy and policy change.

In this episode, you'll learn how grassroots citizen initiatives are shaping modern democracy, often operating independently of traditional political and institutional structures. This episode explores real-world case studies, key features of citizen governance spaces, and their potential to influence public policy and democratic reform.

I want to thank Nicole Curato for suggesting that I create a series of episodes on books, as well as the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance for their support of these episodes.

In this episode, Helen Sullivan discusses her book 'Collaboration and Public in the Pursuit of Public Purpose'. She emphasises the importance of collaboration in public policy, the role of agency, & the need for public participation. We also touch on emotions in public service, the challenges of sustaining collaboration beyond individual actors, and the impact of context on collaborative efforts. She highlights the evolving nature of collaboration amid global challenges & the influence of AI. I want to thank Nicole Curato for suggesting a series of episodes on books, and the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance for their support of these episodes.

In this bonus episode, I talk with Anouch Toranian, the Deputy Mayor of Paris, Yves Dejaeghere, the Executive Director of the Federation for Innovation in Democracy, Europe and Claudia Chwalisz, leader of innovation in citizen engagement with the OECD about the design and establishment of the Paris Citizens' Assembly.

The Paris Citizens' Assembly was established in 2021 with 100 Parisians representing the diversity of the city of Paris. The Assembly is charged with evaluating past programs or policies, setting up citizens' juries and determining the topic for Paris' annual participatory budgeting process.

The Assembly is unique in that the Council are sharing with the Assembly members responsibility for designing how it works.

In episode eight of season three of the podcast, I'm speaking with Therese Arseneau about the introduction of a mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system.

Therese was an expert advisor to the New Zealand Electoral Commission between 2010 and 2016. She is currently an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Therese sets out

• the background to the referendum which led to the introduction of MMP in New Zealand [1:20]
• how voters view the impact of MMP [13:30]
• the reality of MMP and coalition governments [21:20]
• the impact of MMP on women's representation [28:10]
• the wider impact of MMP [34:00] and
• Maori representation generally and the impact of MMP [39:30]

The story of New Zealand's radical change to their electoral system and it's broad impacts is a fascinating one.

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The next podcast episode will be about electoral systems in South East Asia.

In this episode, I'm talking with Antony Green about the Australian electoral system and Vote Compass, a tool which allows voters to explore how their views align with the major parties.

Antony is an Australian psephologist and commentator. He is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's election analyst. As well as being an Adjunct Professor University of Sydney in the School of Social and Political Sciences.

I spoke with Antony about how he came to be Australia's best-known election analyst - he said he was in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.

He identified three institutions which define Australian politics:

1. Compulsory voting
2. Preferential voting
3. Bi-cameral Houses of Parliament

And highlighted a couple of institutional challenges in Australia

• The power of our Senate undermines the mandate given to the House of Representatives to implement the policies they took to the election
• Strict rules around what counts as a validly completed ballot paper results in around one-third to a half of all votes being considered informal.

I also asked Antony what he thought of the idea of a Citizens' Senate. He noted that it would be difficult in practice due to the need to amend the Australian Constitution and that there would be many questions to be answered about how it might work in practice.

Anthony has been involved in the development of Vote Compass here in Australia and I asked him about the benefits and limitations of the tool.

My interview with Antony was recorded some time ago and we are currently in the midst of a Federal Election here in Australia. As Antony suggested in his comments on Vote Compass, it has been extended to include the ultra-conservative party One Nation. It will be interesting to see the impact of a party to the right of the Liberal/Nationals on where people's policy preferences align.

If you would like to see how your policy preferences align with four of the political parties contesting the upcoming 2019 Federal Election visit the ABC's Vote Compass.

1. Institutional reforms are not exceptional or rare
2. Political elites make reforms in reaction to events rather than in a proactive way
3. To understand change and stability we need to look at the processes of reform which are either consensual or conflictual.

• key features of electoral integrity
• factors which support or hinder electoral integrity
• why the United States is at the bottom of the 'scoreboard' amongst Western democracies in regard to electoral integrity and
• how different electoral systems impact on the representation of minorities and women.

• deliberation is a universal capacity - anyone anywhere can do it
• however, deliberation is manifested differently in different cultures and contexts
• context and culture should not be conflated
• culture involves processes of meaning-making to which deliberation can contribute
• there are ethical issues associated with critiquing other cultures.

Despite the range of cultures and contexts in which deliberation occurs John believes that 'we can't simply wait' until we understand these different approaches before we develop global deliberative processes or we could be waiting forever.

1. consider research questions from a non-western perspective
2. undertake empirical research looking at how deliberative processes can feed into global governance.

1. be open and transparent about our judgements when looking at other cultures
2. be open to being wrong, what he calls 'cultural self-criticism'
3. make cultural self-criticism an explicit component of cross-cultural studies, and
4. bring the subjects of our investigations into the evaluation of our findings and be open to modifying our conclusions based on their input.

He noted that there are lots of reasons why doing these things is hard.