Standing up the the strong men

The threat posed by authoritarian states demands a robust response from the world’s democracies and we must not allow their victims to fight on alone.

Don’t believe the hype

From authoritarian propaganda to virtual reality and non-fungible tokens, reality must increasingly compete with the unreal for attention and credibility.

Confronting state fragility and democratic decline

The return of strategic competition between states is an established geopolitical trend, but states themselves are getting more fragile, according to the 2021 Fund for Peace Fragile States Index.

The gen-Y democracy gap

New research finds there’s democracy gap for young Australian adults, with a distrust of traditional politics but a focus on civic mindedness.

Revitalising Australian democracy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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