• Revitalising Australian democracy

    Tom Gerald Daly     |      September 15, 2021

    Today’s “International Day of Democracy” and Joe Biden’s forthcoming Summit for Democracy should prompt a greater focus on renewing Australia’s democratic system.

  • Nurturing the deep roots of democracy

    Hilary Gopnik     |      February 27, 2021

    The 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.

  • Australia needs a civics lesson

    Zareh Ghazarian     |      February 8, 2021

    Although the law will compel them to vote, young people remain ill-equipped to participate in Australian democracy.

  • Counterpoint by Mark Nicol – Autocracy, democracy, meritocracy

    Mark Nicol     |      December 16, 2020

    A 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.

  • Counterpoint by Mark Nicol – The idea of democracy

    Mark Nicol     |      December 10, 2020

    Western 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.

  • How to keep the lights on in democracies

    Open Forum     |      November 5, 2020

    We 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.

  • Doing democracy better

    Open Forum     |      October 15, 2020

    University 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.

  • Vox Populi

    Fergus Neilson     |      September 25, 2020

    Fergus Neilson analyses a snapshot of opinions on the condition of 21st century democracy and offers some ideas for reform.

  • Democracy has been a victim of COVID-19

    Tom Gerald Daly     |      June 11, 2020

    COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on democracy worldwide, but some democracies are more resilient than others.

  • Getting our own house in order

    Michael Shoebridge     |      November 28, 2019

    Strengthening Australia’s democratic institutions will help ensure that Chinese state and corporate interference does not divide our society or undercut our national interests.

  • Arvanitakis on American politics: Why bipartisanship is hard

    James Arvanitakis     |      September 28, 2019

    Headlines 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?

  • Australian democracy demands a proper debate

    Dominic O'Sullivan     |      August 20, 2019

    Australian 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.