Living Democracy Virtual Talk: Archon Fung: From the Embers of Crisis

Living Democracy Talk: From the Embers of Crisis: Creating Equitable and Deliberative Democracy with Archon Fung 

Free to attend; registration required to receive Zoom webinar attendance link

At a moment when American Democracy was characterized by record levels of political division, inequality, and institutional distrust, it was hit by the perfect storm of the COVID-19 health crisis, an economic crisis of soaring unemployment and economic dislocation, and a civic crisis of reckoning with deep racism and police abuse. What would it take to create from the embers of these crises a deeper, more egalitarian and deliberative democracy in America? Many lay their hopes in a change of Presidential administration in the coming election. But long before Donald Trump, our government had already failed to create a system that shared the fruits of prosperity justly. Our government was unresponsive to the wishes of many Americans, especially people of color and non-wealthy Americans. A return to the pre-Trump half century encompassing Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and perhaps Obama — of relatively narrowly bounded disputes between the center-left and center-right — would not address those deeper failures. Delivering on the promise of American democracy — the promise of inclusion, equality, deliberation, and self-government — requires more fundamental political reorganization: new leaders with relationships of mutual understanding and accountability to the communities that they are meant to represent; powerful new popular groups and organizations; and electoral structures that enable all Americans to participate meaningfully in politics. Audience Q&A will follow.

Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance. He focuses upon public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He co-directs the Transparency Policy Project and leads democratic governance programs of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School. His books include Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency (Cambridge University Press, with Mary Graham and David Weil) and Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton University Press). He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals.

Sponsored by the IHC’s Living Democracy series and the Sara Miller McCune and George D. McCune Endowment

REGISTER NOW. ASL and Spanish interpretation will be provided. To view ASL interpretation, please attend the webinar on a desktop computer.