Future Publics: Democracy, Deliberation, and Future-Regarding Collective Action

Written by Michael K. MacKenzie

Narrated by Stephen Bel Davies

Scholars have often claimed that democracies, whatever their virtues, are functionally short-sighted. The evidence is clear: we have been unable to manage many long-term issues, including climate change, nuclear waste disposal, natural disaster preparedness, infrastructure maintenance, and budget deficits. To solve long-term problems, do we need political systems that are less democratic, or even authoritarian?

This idea, which Michael K. MacKenzie calls the "democratic myopia thesis," is a sort of conventional wisdom; it is an idea that scholars and pundits take for granted as a truth about democracy without subjecting it to adequate critical scrutiny. In Future Publics, MacKenzie challenges this conventional wisdom and articulates a deliberative, democratic theory of future-regarding collective action. MacKenzie argues that each part of the democratic myopia problem can be addressed through democratic-rather than authoritarian-means. At a more fundamental level, once we recognize that democratic practices are world-making activities that empower us to make our shared worlds together, they should also be understood as future-making activities. Despite the short-term dynamics associated with electoral democracy, MacKenzie asserts that we need more inclusive and deliberative democracies if we are going to make shared futures that will work for us all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666167146

Reviews for Future Publics

[Tino Tsuro · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book very informative for an emerging topic. Learned a lot