Comments: Giovanni Allegretti (CES) | Moderator: Sara Araújo (FEUC/CES)
 

About

Many scholars and opinion makers claim that democracy is in crisis because more and more citizens support populist leaders (like Trump) and ambiguous referendums (like Brexit). Thus, they propose to reduce the channels of citizens' engagement in politics. In contrast, we will argue that such problems can be addressed through citizen empowerment. Inspired by Oregon, in a number of Swiss municipalities and cantons, we let a panel of randomly selected citizens debate an issue of an upcoming referendum and then communicate the results to their fellow citizens so that they can make a more informed decision. It is just one among many possibilities to address the challenge of populism by offering more, not less, democratic channels to ordinary citizens.

Commentary by Giovanni Allegretti, senior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and member of the UNPOP project research team. Introduction and moderation by Sara Araújo, professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra and member of the UNPOP project research team.

In order to invite all interested people to talk about the themes of populism and emotions, the research team of the UNPOP project - UNpacking POPulism: Comparing the formation of emotion narratives and their effects on political behaviour, coordinated at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, organises a series of open talks. Coordinated by Cristiano Gianolla and Lisete Mónico and institutionally hosted by the Centre for Social Studies and CINEICC - Research Centre in Neuropsychology and Cognitive-Behavioural Intervention - of the University of Coimbra, the UNPOP project is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (PTDC/CPO-CPO/3850/2020).

Bio note
Nenad Stojanović is SNSF Professor of Political Science at the University of Geneva. His main research topic is democracy, with a focus on political institutions for multicultural societies. In recent years, he has organised several 'deliberative mini-publics' (i.e. assemblies of citizens selected by lottery) in several Swiss cantons and cities and collaborated on a similar project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of Dialogue sur les quotas: Penser la représentation dans une démocratie multiculturelle (Presses de Sciences Po 2013; Il Mulino 2014) and Multilingual Democracy: Switzerland and Beyond (ECPR Press 2021).
 

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