Faltering democratic systems and the need to reconstruct democracy

Democracy in Question?

Guests featured in this episode:

Dr Michael John Hastings, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE. He began his career as a teacher at a London Comprehensive school but after a few years took up a government job and supported policy initiatives to bring employment and development to Britain’s inner cities in a rough period marked by urban riots. He went to work for the BBC as presenter and later joined the BBC Corporate Division, after which he became the head of its Public Affairs, and then its first head of Corporate Social Responsibility. In 2002, he was appointed CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in recognition of his services to crime reduction, including two decades of serving as a trustee and chairman of Crime Concern, and nine year of work with the Commission for Racial Equality. In 2005, he became a crossbencher life peer in the House of Lords.

GLOSSARY:

What was the January 6 insurrection ?
(00:10:45 or p.3 in the transcript)

United States Capitol attack o on January 6, 2021, by a mob of supporters of Pres. Donald J.Trump. The attack disrupted a joint session of Congress convened to certify the results of thepresidential election of 2020, which Trump had lost to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Because its object was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attack was widely regarded as an insurrection or coup d’etat. The FBI and other law-enforcement agencies also considered it an act of domestic terrorism. For having given a speech before the attack in which he encouraged a large crowd of his supporters near the White House to march to the Capitol and violently resist Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory—which many in the crowd then did—Trump was impeached ched by the Democratic-led House of Representatives for “incitement of insurrection” ;he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate. Source:

What is the Davos Forum and what is the agenda for 2022 meeting?
(00:30:14 or p.7 in the transcript)

For more than 50 years, the World Economic Forum, also known as the Davos Forum, has served as a global platform where leaders from business, government, international organizations, civil society and academia come together to address critical issues at the start of each year.

Davos was established in 1971 in Geneva (Switzerland) as an “independent, impartial and not tied to special interests” non-profit organization. Its founder is Klaus M. Schwab, a professor at the University of Geneva, who initially invited 444 executives from European companies to a meeting on corporate governance in the convention center of Davos.

His idea was to introduce the American business management approach to European firms. He never imagined that that meeting would lead to the unparalleled international summit that it is today.

Thousands of ideas come out of the Davos Forum. Not all of them materialize, but some have come far: the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, was first proposed at an informal meeting in Davos.

In 2021, the forum had to be canceled because of the pandemic.

The war in Ukraine and the human tragedy that it entails has forced a change of agenda. Leaders gathered in Davos must therefore address the challenges stemming from the conflict, yet not lose sight of longer-term environmental, technological and social priorities. The meetings are structured around six themes: 1) Promoting global and regional cooperation; 2) Ensuring economic recovery and building a new era of growth; 3) Building healthy and fair societies; 4) Safeguarding the climate, food supply and nature; 5) Promoting the transformation of industry; 6) Harnessing the power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Source:

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• Central European University: CEU

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Podcast Company: Novel

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• Central European University: @CEU

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