Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast How to Save Democracy
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
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| Meet Jon | 01 Jul 2025 | 00:23:50 | |
In this episode, co-host Omezzine Khelifa turns the mic on her fellow presenter, Jon Alexander. Before founding the New Citizenship Project and writing Citizens, Jon spent a decade in the world of advertising — helping big brands sell more stuff. So how did he make the leap from marketing to reimagining democracy? Omezzine asks the thoughtful (and tough) questions as we trace Jon’s journey from consumer culture to citizen action — as they explore what it really means to tell a hopeful new story about democracy’s future. | |||
| Meet Omezzine | 01 Jul 2025 | 00:30:44 | |
We’re figuring out how to fix democracy. Not by talking about it from a distance, but by meeting the people doing the work. In this episode, you have the chance to get to know co-host, Omezzine Khelifa — someone who’s lived every facet of this fight: reformer, revolutionary, politician, and practitioner. Omezzine proudly calls herself French-Tunisian, and her story begins in the heart of the 2010 Tunisian Revolution — what would become known to the world as the Arab Spring. From the frontlines of protest to the halls of parliament, from activism to tech, and even acting, Omezzine brings a rare mix of insight, experience, and conviction. Chapters
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| Citizen is a Verb | 01 Jul 2025 | 00:58:00 | |
Back in September 2024, as the US election took an unexpected turn, we gathered at the Conduit Club in London with Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart — the powerhouse duo behind How To Citizen. Since launching their project in 2020, they’ve been telling the stories of the “next democracy,” spotlighting people who are already reimagining civic life. In this episode, we 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. Chapters
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| Facing the Menace | 01 Jul 2025 | 01:00:42 | |
In this episode, we’re not looking away. We’re acknowledging the cracks in our democracies and asking what can still be done. Recorded live at the Conduit Club in early 2024, this powerful conversation brings together two sharp, prescient voices: political strategist and pollster Paul Hilder, and author and journalist Ece Temelkuran. Paul has worked on elections across Europe, uncovering the deeper trends shaping our politics. Ece, whose book How to Lose a Country warned of creeping authoritarianism back in 2019, draws urgent lessons from Turkey and beyond. Their insights feel even more vital now than they did then. Chapters
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| The Irish Citizens’ Assembly | 04 Nov 2025 | 01:04:37 | |
In September 2025, Jon hosted a live event in Dublin exploring the past, present and future of one of the most exciting democratic experiments of recent times. Over the last 15 years, Ireland's Citizens' Assembly has brought nearly 600 randomly selected citizens together to deliberate on issues from abortion to marriage equality to biodiversity, before making recommendations to elected officials. Join us as we delve into what happened, how, and why - and ask whether this approach could help save democracy all over the world. David Farrell is Chair of Politics at UCD and was part of the original We The Citizens project that preceded the Irish Constitutional Convention and the Citizens’ Assembly.Art O'Leary is chief executive at An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the Electoral Commission of Ireland, the management and oversight organisation for electoral and wider democracy matters, and Secretary to the Citizens’ Assembly. Louise Caldwell is one of the randomly selected citizens to have taken part in the Assembly, and has since joined the board of People Powered, the global advocacy organisation for participatory democracy. Chapters
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| Taiwan’s Transformation | 14 Nov 2025 | 00:54:05 | |
Trust in government has been collapsing all over the world over the last decade - but one country has bucked the trend. Fewer than 10% of the population trusted government in 2014, but by 2024, that figure had climbed above 70%. Spurred on by a collective of civic hackers calling themselves “Gov Zero”, Taiwan has trusted its people, opened its institutions, and even crowdsourced what was arguably the world’s most successful Covid response. In this episode, we draw out the lessons every nation can learn from this story with the help of one of its key actors, Audrey Tang. Audrey is Taiwan’s “Cyber Ambassador” and former Minister of Digital Affairs. A prominent member of the Gov Zero collective, she became a reverse mentor to Minister Jaclyn Tsai in the aftermath of the peaceful Sunflower Revolution in 2014, before joining government herself in 2016 - and becoming the world’s first transgender minister in the process. Chapters
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| Nation of Strangers | 09 Mar 2026 | 00:56:41 | |
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. Chapters
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| Neighbourhood Power | 23 Mar 2026 | 01:05:30 | |
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. Chapters
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| What Art Can Do for Democracy | 13 Apr 2026 | 01:08:15 | |
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. Chapters
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| A Democracy of Doing | 02 Jul 2026 | 00:42:46 | |
Jon found himself in Perth, Western Australia, with the team from the DoingCo. This social enterprise supports a growing movement of “town teams” across the country and beyond: local doers coming together to shape their places, their way. This is a joyful, powerful movement - as you’ll hear from nightclub-promoter-turned-community-organiser Jimmy Murphy, and all-round citizen powerhouse Kendell Terrell. Chapters
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| Double Take Debate: How to Save Democracy | 16 Jul 2026 | 00:40:43 | |
Jon took the hot seat for this episode of award-winning comedian Robin Clyfan’s new current affairs podcast, Double Take Debate. This discussion pits the politics of deliverism, where politicians try to fix the problems of the world for us, against our vision of a more participatory democracy, where people hold the solutions to our own problems. The politics of England’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, get a mention or two along the way… Chapters
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| It Takes a City | 09 Jul 2026 | 00:27:45 | |
Our friends Flavio and Stefania have brought together stories of participation and democracy from across four continents. In this episode, they interview the pioneering Portuguese politician Graça Fonseca about her time as Deputy Mayor of Lisbon - and about that city’s participatory budget, which every years sees millions of euros directly allocated to citizen ideas by citizen vote. Chapters
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| The DOCE Proposal | 30 Jul 2026 | 00:39:28 | |
Jon has spent much of the last year based at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as a Visiting Fellow on the “Reimagining Democracy” programme. As part of this, he published an essay calling for the creation of Departments of Citizen Empowerment at every level of government, everywhere in the world. In this episode, Omezzine interviews Jon about the ideas in the essay, with the help of our new friend from the University of Manchester, political theorist Jonny Benson. Chapters
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