How to save democracy

Welcome to How To Save Democracy, a new podcast that aims to heal society’s broken relationship with democracy.

Omezzine was an activist in the Tunisian Revolution, before becoming a politician trying to build a new politics in the aftermath. Jon is a futurist and philosopher who has travelled the world on the trail of the vibrant, participatory democracy that’s emerging everywhere. And Jo is our multi award-winning producer, dedicated to helping us tell the stories we find.

Democracy today is full of flaws. It’s not really “by the people, for the people” – if it ever was. But it could be… and it must be.

Come with us on a journey to find out how.

Episodes

The first six episodes are below and we’ve got some great conversations lined up, from legendary musician and artist Brian Eno, to the former Chief Creative Officer of Mexico City, to the former Portuguese Minister who introduced the world’s first national participatory budget…

But if we’re going to make more, we need to know you want it and we need your support. We’re seeking funding from a range of foundations, but every little helps – and every sign up and every donation demonstrates the appetite to potential funders. So if you can’t contribute right now, please do sign up for the mailing list at the bottom of the page.

Donate here to help make Season One

Meet our co-host, Omezzine Khelifa — someone who’s lived every facet of this fight: reformer, revolutionary, politician, and practitioner.

Co-host Omezzine Khelifa turns the mic on her fellow presenter, Jon Alexander. Expect thoughtful (and tough) questions about Jon’s journey from consumer culture to citizen action

We’re not looking away. We’re acknowledging the cracks in our democracies and asking what can still be done. Recorded live with political strategist Paul Hilder, and journalist Ece Temelkuran.

We meet Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart, and explore their radical, hopeful idea: that being a citizen is something we do, not something we are. It’s a call to action and a reminder that democracy is not a product, but a practice.

Get under the surface of one of the most hopeful stories of the last 20 years of democracy, with three of the people who’ve been closest to it: the political scientist who had the original idea, the civil servant tasked with making it happen, and a randomly selected citizen who’s gone on to become a global advocate of participatory democracy.

We meet Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador and former Minister of Digital Affairs, and a true democracy pioneer. The story of Taiwan’s crowdsourced Covid response, and how it came about, is one everyone needs to hear.

For our first live recording, we host Turkish writer and political commentator Ece Temelkuran to discuss her brave and beautiful new book, Nation Of Strangers. In a world unmaking our sense of safety and belonging, Ece offers something we desperately need: a vision of the future we can create together and requiring all of us. Her most powerful insight? The unhomed among us aren’t simply victims of our times. They’re pioneers, already carrying the know-how we need to build our new home together.

Radical architect Indy Johar and renowned community leader Immy Kaur share their understanding of the vital importance of neighbourhood-scale work in the face of the realities of our time. Sometimes brutal in their realism, they force us to stare hard at the challenges and not shy away from painful truths. But they’re also insistent about what becomes possible when we work at a human scale: the scale of our lives and the places we live, where we all have a role to play in building the future we need.

We host legendary artist Brian Eno and his co-author Bette Adriaanse to explore the ideas in their book, What Art Does. Feelings are not luxuries, they’re powerful forces that can nurture democracy or, in the wrong hands, unmake it entirely. Even at its most intimate and personal level, art invites us to imagine alternatives, experiment, and find grounding, a sense of stability, and forward momentum in a world of increasing uncertainty.