In this episode, I am in conversation with Kyle Redman, who’s based in Sydney, Australia, where he’s the research and design project manager at New Democracy Foundation. NDF aims to build citizens’ trust in government decision-making. Kyle previously worked with international partners to design democratic innovations in Eupen, Fortaleza, and Madrid. He has also co-authored the “United Nations Democracy Fund Handbook Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections”, and “The A, B & C of Democracy”.
Kyle begins by describing the time at university, where he was unhappy in his choice of computer science as his focus. He talks about this as a pivotal moment of discomfort, when he decided to discontinue his computer science degree and pursue a Bachelor of Arts instead, which turned out to be life-changing.
This pivot led him to apply for an internship at New Democracy Foundation, which later led to a full-time job there. His work now involves extensive traveling, engaging with a diverse and representative range of people, gaining their insights, and putting forward their ideas to influence policymaking that reflects those it seeks to impact. Another aspect of his job is to raise awareness and educate people about bills being passed, involving citizens in the democratic process and informing government about real, pressing issues they face.
Citing examples of bills on same-sex marriage, abortions, climate change, and community laws, Kyle emphasizes the potential capacities of citizen assemblies.
We agree that politics is about solving problems of people and NDF is facilitating this process. He acknowledges that his work profile has been extremely gratifying and is fuelling his passion. Kyle concludes by recommending “The Scout Mindset” book by Julia Galef and suggests that we the citizens must change our soldier mindset and advance towards the scout’s problem-solving mindset, which would be of greater benefit.
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Key Points:
- The Moment of Discomfort – How Kyle’s discomfort in university paved the way for a gratifying career (06:37)
- What is Kyle’s domain and what motivates him at New Democracy (14:00)
- The other side of the confirmation bias (20:30)
- The pros and cons of the American system of democracy, why Americans don’t care about politics (22:34)
- The optimized politician’s brain: win elections by convincing people to vote (28:00)
- Politics is a game; don’t hate the player, hate the game instead (29:11)
- Young politicians lose track of their goal in fundraisers; citizen assemblies would help young politicians for deliberative politics (31:00)
- People vote in their interests. But facts and awareness can overturn their interests (34:00)
- Citizen assemblies: An approach to solve community problems, planning laws, same-sex marriage legislation, amendments of abortion laws, and environmental laws. (36:10)
- Our political systems are 200 years old and they are fit for the present but much less for the future (40:56)
- Where and how to reach out to begin? “you start advocating for change that is not goal-oriented, but is process-oriented” (41:50)
- The Scout Mindset and the Soldier Mindset: Book recommendation (44:00)
Connect with Kyle Redman:
- Kyle on Twitter
- Kyle on Linkedin
Connect with Betsy Reed:
- Betsy on Instagram
- Betsy on Twitter
- Betsy on Linkedin
- Betsy’s Website
Resources Mentioned:
- New Democracy Foundation
- The A, B & C of Democracy: Or Cats in the Sack by Luca Belgiorno-Nettis and Kyle Redman
- Politics as a vocation by Max Weber
- Democracy R&D
- The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't by Julia Galef
- Change Politics
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