Citizens’ Initiative Reviews: Democracy via Vicarious Deliberation?
Although there has been much talk (or rather speculation) in deliberative democracy circles on the potential and possible pitfalls of “intensive” citizen deliberation–especially on Equality by Lot–there has been little … Continue reading
Debugging the System
A review of Manuel Arriaga’s Rebooting Democracy [A] long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT. Thomas Paine, Common Sense Rebooting Democracy … Continue reading
A Lesson for Michael Moore
[and Noam Chomsky too!] Multimedia is rare on Fila Sophia but the occasion is special. Without looking for conspiracies or evil-doers, without cinema gimmicks, this 45-minute documentary (French with English … Continue reading
An alternative to campaign-finance reform?
[First appeared on openDemocracy on April 22, 2014.] The still fresh McCutcheon v FEC Supreme Court decision, like the January 2010 Citizens United, has again set off the rage of … Continue reading
The Neo-Athenian Revival
[Appeared April 2 openDemocracy. Ideas first appeared Jan 20, 2014 Truthout.] A recent Economist article “What’s Gone Wrong with Democracy” is chock-full of photographs of discontent from places in revolution—Ukraine, … Continue reading
Fila Sophia 