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Revitalising Australian democracy
Tom Gerald Daly | September 15, 2021Today’s “International Day of Democracy” and Joe Biden’s forthcoming Summit for Democracy should prompt a greater focus on renewing Australia’s democratic system.
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Nurturing the deep roots of democracy
Hilary Gopnik | February 27, 2021The widely accepted story that democracy was a brilliant, even miraculous, invention of 5th-century BCE Athens, and that the West is the heir to that moment in time, has obscured the universal hard work that’s required to make democracy work well.
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Australia needs a civics lesson
Zareh Ghazarian | February 8, 2021Although the law will compel them to vote, young people remain ill-equipped to participate in Australian democracy.
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Counterpoint by Mark Nicol – Autocracy, democracy, meritocracy
Mark Nicol | December 16, 2020A revamped political system based on meritocracy, rather than lumpen authoritarianism or traditional democracy, might be the best way to escape the West’s current political and social malaise.
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Counterpoint by Mark Nicol – The idea of democracy
Mark Nicol | December 10, 2020Western liberal democracy has its deep but tangled roots in a host of religious as well as secular traditions, and its apparent decline can only be arrested by a reappreciation of rationality and individual merit.
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How to keep the lights on in democracies
Open Forum | November 5, 2020We need to work together to find ways to keep the light of democracy shining in our countries and all over the world. Because if we don’t, we will indeed face dark days ahead.
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Doing democracy better
Open Forum | October 15, 2020University of Canberra researchers from the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance have received a funding boost to monitor “deliberative integrity”, a project which could prove crucial for Australian democracy.
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Vox Populi
Fergus Neilson | September 25, 2020Fergus Neilson analyses a snapshot of opinions on the condition of 21st century democracy and offers some ideas for reform.
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Democracy has been a victim of COVID-19
Tom Gerald Daly | June 11, 2020COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on democracy worldwide, but some democracies are more resilient than others.
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Getting our own house in order
Michael Shoebridge | November 28, 2019Strengthening Australia’s democratic institutions will help ensure that Chinese state and corporate interference does not divide our society or undercut our national interests.
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Arvanitakis on American politics: Why bipartisanship is hard
James Arvanitakis | September 28, 2019Headlines highlighting President Trump’s erratic behaviour are masking a more worrying decline of faith in democracy and national unity across the free world. What are the factors driving us apart, and what, if anything, can we do about them?
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Australian democracy demands a proper debate
Dominic O'Sullivan | August 20, 2019Australian democracy is failing to deal with the complex interrelationships between coal and climate change, regional security interests, human rights and trade but today’s political culture of slogans and disengagement from proper debate and scrutiny makes it harder still.