Feature
Navigating Democracy’s Next Chapter at the “Founding Futures” Conference
Ash Center Fellow Jon Alexander joined a diverse group of speakers at TED Democracy Philadelphia to share bold ideas for revitalizing modern democracy.
Occasional Paper
Problem-Solving at the Community Scale: A Deweyan Approach to the Democratic Practices of Minoritized Groups within the United States, South Africa, and Australia
By:
-
![]()
Katharina Liesenberg
-
![]()
Michael Lucas
-
![]()
Stefan Chavez-Norgaard
Programs
Issues
The democratic “recession” across the globe is emerging as a political hallmark of the 21st century. This is evidenced by the incremental breakdown of formal, political democratic practices and institutions among many nations, including in the North Atlantic states, as well as by the fear or anticipation of democratic erosion. This paper uses a pragmatist approach to demonstrate how, in the face of democratic breakdowns, resilient democratic practices are taking form in remarkably varied ways in the common structural context of settler-colonial nation-states that are nominally in stages of advanced democratic consolidation.
Katharina Liesenberg is a Democracy Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
Michael Lucas is a Democracy Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
Stefan Chavez-Norgaard is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Korbel School’s Douglas and Mary Scrivner Institute of Public Policy.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
Related Resources
Feature
Reimagining Democracy 2026 Summer Reading List
Tova Wang, director of research projects in democratic practice at the Ash Center, shares her top picks for summer reads focused on making democracy more resilient, responsive, and inclusive.
Podcast
Terms of Engagement – The Battle for the Democratic Party
What does the rise of Democratic Socialists and other progessives mean for the future of American politics? Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a conservative commentator, joins Terms of Engagement hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to discuss.
Feature
Reimagining Democracy 2026 Summer Reading List
Tova Wang, director of research projects in democratic practice at the Ash Center, shares her top picks for summer reads focused on making democracy more resilient, responsive, and inclusive.
Commentary
Allen Lab Fellow Spotlight: City Charters Are Deliberative Democracy’s Friends
Allen Lab Fellow Tyler Fisher examines the untapped potential of city charters as a vehicle for deliberative democracy, arguing that advocates should work to embed tools like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and town meetings directly into the governing architecture of cities, institutionalizing deliberative democracy one municipality at a time.
Commentary
Work in the Age of AI: Reflections from After Neoliberalism
Allen Lab member Charlie Covit reflects on the After Neoliberalism conference and examines the intersection of artificial intelligence and the future of work, arguing that AI forces a democratic reckoning with the meaning of labor itself and that an economy which generates abundance while stripping citizens of purpose and dignity undermines the very foundation of democratic life.