A light lunch will be served
About the Speakers:
Éloi Laurent, Senior Economist at OFCE (Sciences Po Centre for Economic Research in Paris, France) and Visiting Scholar, Center for European Studies/Visiting Professor, Environmental Science and Public Policy.
Michael MacKenzie, Democracy Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School.
Graham Smith, Professor of Politics, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, U.K. and trustee for the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, currently Ash Center Senior Visiting Scholar.
About the workshop:
Many of our most pressing political problems involve long-term issues such as environmental degradation, debt accumulation, education spending, or the viability of social policies such as public pension plans. Short electoral cycles create strong incentives for politicians to adopt policies that produce near-term net benefits. Moreover, individuals are often more concerned about their own immediate interests than they are about long-term collective problems. For example, environmental concerns have consistently ranked far behind immediate economic concerns in almost all democracies since the start of the “great recession” in 2008. But is this a structural problem with democracies? Are democracies inherently vulnerable to fall prey to the concerns of the present?... Read more about (Re)designing Democracy for the Long Term