The crisis of democracy

For generations, we just assumed democracy is fixed and given. However, all across the world, democracies are sick and suffering from a crisis of confidence. Polls show just a third of Australians are satisfied with the way our democracy is working. Public trust in our politicians is at record lows.

So, how do we restore faith in democracy? Is there too much corporate and foreign money involved in the electoral process? Is the noisy and relentless media cycle the cause of the problem or the symptom? Is political polarization likely to get worse? How do we attract better elected representatives? How do we do democracy better?

CIS hosted a conversation with Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, of newDemocracy, and Glenn Barnes, Company director, as well as Janet Albrechtsen, columnist with The Australian and Matthew Lesh, a research fellow with the IPA and author of Democracy in a Divided Australia (Connor Court).