Books & ideas

Participation Against Democracy

Olivier Roueff — 2019-07-01T07:00:00Z

The historically informed study of participatory mechanisms in the Indian capital, New Delhi, shows that democracy resides less in procedural engineering, whether participatory or electoral, than in the mobilizations that take advantage of it.

Citizen Hacker

Clément Mabi — 2017-07-06T07:00:00Z

To increase citizen participation and political responsiveness, today new civic tech claims to be ‘hacking' democracy. Going beyond their immediate appeal, can these technologies deeply transform politics? What project do they propose?

Whither Democracy in Brazil?

Émilie Frenkiel — 2016-11-17T08:00:00Z

The president of the Brazilian Political Science Association, an expert of democratic innovations, discusses how Brazilian political scientists are taking stock of the Workers Party president's curtailed electoral mandate in favor of Michel Temer and how it impacts their research orientation.

Civic Hacking and our Political Future

Émilie Frenkiel — 2016-02-25T08:00:00Z

Can fresh air come from young democracies like Taiwan and civic-minded hacktivists like Audrey Tang? This interview shows that both help renew democratic practices in providing sophisticated collaborative, participatory and deliberative tools.

Democracy and “the People”

Norbert Lenoir — 2015-07-08T22:00:00Z

Democracy is not the government of the people, by the people. Rather, it is a permanent process of conquering new rights. This is the argument of Catherine Colliot-Thélène's book, which examines the tension, found throughout democracy's history, between individual emancipation and political affiliation.

Democracy, Urban Issues and Corruption in Contemporary Brazil

Alfredo Ramos — 2014-06-19T07:14:48Z

The June protests which shook Brazil in 2013 stunned the world. This dossier, published by Books&Ideas, discusses the main issues at the core of these protests, analyzing them in the light of previous mobilizations and explaining why they are essential to the understanding of contemporary Brazil.

Is European citizenship feasible?

Justine Lacroix — 2010-01-07T15:42:39Z

Europe is inventing a new form of citizenship founded not in government participation but in the achievement of specifically European rights and in a political debate increasingly geared to European issues, evidencing, Justine Lacroix asserts, if not the existence of a European people, at any rate that of a political Europe.

Is representative democracy really democratic ?

Hélène Landemore — 2008-03-31T08:53:07Z

Hélène Landemore : Bernard Manin and Nadia Urbinati, you both have written books with apparently similar titles, respectively The principles of representative government (1997) and Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy (2006). I would like to organize the discussion around the question of whether representative democracy is an contradiction in terms or the true essence of democracy. I will break down the theme into more manageable questions.