Mark Chou

Democracy's not for me: The Lowy Institute polls on Gen Y and democracy

For two consecutive years, the Lowy Institute Poll has revealed just how little Australians seem to value democracy. This has particularly been the case for Australias so-called Generation Y. Understandably, these findings have aroused dismay among media, policy and academic commentators, with many automatically assuming the troubling nature of these findings. Despite this, little consideration has been given to what the results actually denote, and what they were not telling us about the rationale and justification behind the Gen Y responses. This critical commentary offers some preliminary thoughts and findings on what the Lowy Polls are not telling us; as well as on what they are telling us. 连续两年，罗伊民调所发现澳大利亚人对民主评价极低。澳大利亚所谓的“Y一代”尤其如此。可以想见，这样的发现让媒体以及政策和学术评论者失望不已，许多人会马上想到这些发现会造成的麻烦。其实，很少有人思考这类发现的真实所指，思考关于Y一代反应所没有讲出的东西。这篇批评性文章提供了一些初步的想法和发见：罗伊民调除了讲了什么，它还没讲什么？

From Crisis to Crisis: Democracy, Crisis and the Occupy Movement

For a movement that emerged to spotlight the crisis of liberal democracy, it did not take long for the Occupy Movement to find itself embroiled in its own democratic crisis. Occupys story has exposed just how central or constitutive crises are to democracy. But is crisis such a deleterious thing? Though scholars of democracy have customarily given it a bad name, should we consider democracies to be in trouble when they are met with crisis, when they themselves create a crisis? According to the three volumes reviewed in this article, crises can have the potential to hamper and destroy democracies, but they can also possess the uncanny capacity to reinvigorate them. For scholars of democracy – whether they choose to define ‘democracy’ using a liberal, participatory, deliberative, or some other paradigm – it is perhaps this latter interpretation of crisis that may provide the best way to grapple with what comes next for democracy post-Occupy.

The Symbiosis of Democracy and Tragedy: Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece

Democracy and tragedy were intrinsically linked during the time of the Athenian city-state. But though vital at the time, this symbiosis is largely forgotten today. We address this puzzling silence. What was it about democracy that encouraged, even needed, the ascendancy of tragedy? Why did the mass performances of tragedy play so central a role in the democratic polis of Athens? We address these questions not as historians or philologists, but as scholars of contemporary international relations. Our hope, in particular, is to uncover whether the Greek experiment, radical and short-lived as it was, can provide us with clues about how to extend democracy to the global realm, which increasingly shapes peoples lives but so far lacks mechanisms for democratic participation and accountability. We explore how the paradoxical plots that lie at the heart of tragedies remind us — as they did the Greeks — that no order is ever complete or void of contradictions; that democracy is not about complete control but about recognising the limits of politics and dealing with the forces of chaos and change. We illustrate the issues at stake — along with their relevance for contemporary international relations — through tragedys so-called multivocal form, which brought into the public realm a multitude of voices and issues that could not otherwise be heard in democratic deliberations.

Dramatizing War: George Packer and the Democratic Potential of Verbatim Theater

Times of war are often times when democratic debates are under siege. The apparent necessity to ward off an enemy and secure the nations survival can trigger a state of exception: a partial suspension of crucial democratic rights and practices for the sake of national security. The purpose of this essay is to examine the potential and limits of theater to offer an alternative forum for public debate in contexts where freedom of speech is limited. To do so, the authors systematically analyze the content and context of one play: George Packers 2008 award-winning play, Betrayed. Through their analysis, they make two key arguments about the democratic potential of theater. First, that theater has the potential to sidestep political censorship during a time of war. And second, that theater can give voice to a multitude of real characters and under-represented perspectives.

Putting participation on stage: examining participatory theatre as an alternative site for political participation

ABSTRACT Participation, it has been said, is a central lynchpin of citizenship and democracy. Unfortunately, studies have shown for some time that political participation is on the decline in most Western democracies. Particularly for scholars and policy analysts who define political participation in democracy purely as voting, party membership or in terms of a narrow ‘arena’ definition of politics, the conclusion is clear: levels of political illiteracy are rising, while political participation is declining. Yet, the turn away from formal democratic politics and conventional forms of political participation is only one part of the picture. There is now an extensive literature suggesting a proliferation of new developments and alternative forms of political participation. But even as scholars have become more attuned to these new forms of political participation, the focus remains too narrow. Responding to Iris Marion Youngs call to encourage alternative communicative forms in political participation, this article explores the capacity of participatory theatre to be an alternative site of political participation. By surveying three applications of participatory theatre, Jana Sanskriti, Journey of Asylum – Waiting and Betrayed – the article shows how theatre premised on spect-actors set against a communal backdrop can prefigure a more participatory political community.

Democracy in an Age of Tragedy: Democracy, Tragedy and Paradox

Abstract Democracy and tragedy captured a delicate poise in ancient Athens. While many today perceive democracy as a finite, unquestionable and almost procedural form of governance that glorifies equality and liberty for their own sake, the Athenians saw it as so much more. Beyond the burgeoning equality and liberty, which were but fronts for a deeper goal, finitude, unimpeachability and procedural norms were constantly contradicted by boundlessness, subversion and disarray. In such a world, where certainty and immortality were luxuries beyond the reach of humankind, tragedy gave comfort and inspired greatness. The purpose of this article is to draw explicit links between democracy, tragedy and paradox. Given that tragedys political ascendancy coincided with the birth of democracy in ancient Athens, we may assume that democracy was somehow, if not implicitly, tragic. But what was it that made democracy and tragedy speak so intimately to each other and to the Athenians who created them? The answer, at least the one which this article entertains, is paradox.

The threat of autocracy diffusion in consolidated democracies? The case of China, Singapore and Australia

ABSTRACT The majority of today’s authoritarian regimes have little hope of promoting autocracy beyond their own borders, let alone to consolidated democratic countries. However, China and Singapore are two prominent examples of non-democratic countries whose soft power arsenals have given them some global appeal beyond that enjoyed by most authoritarian regimes. But to what extent has China’s and Singapore’s power of example influenced consolidated democracies in terms that the latter wanting to replicate some political practices or even norms in these non-democratic regimes? In this article, we engage recent works to examine this question in relation to how Australians perceive the political example offered by China and Singapore. Focusing our analysis on several prominent polls conducted recently by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, we suggest that at present there is little evidence of a causal impact of the rise of authoritarian powerhouses such as China and Singapore on how Australians view democracy at home. Through these case studies, this article sheds some light on the theoretical as well as practical questions about the inherent impediments of authoritarian diffusion in consolidated democracies.

Combatting voter ignorance: a vertical model of epistocratic voting

ABSTRACT In light of recent political events, prominent scholars have argued that voters ignorant of the issues should be disqualified from taking part in decisions that have the potential to alter political landscapes. As convincing as this literature is in highlighting voter ignorance, it fails to differentiate between local, state, and federal elections and how levels of political knowledge are often scale-dependent. If the level of median voter ignorance is not uniform from one level of government to the next, then neither can the reforms proposed to combat it. In this article, I adapt Bell’s vertical model of democratic meritocracy to argue that the larger the election, the more complex the issues, the more explicit the epistocratic safeguards needed.

Democracy's story … 250 years on

Democracy in Athens did not enjoy a long life. In fact, by most accounts, it took only 250 years for the West’s first great democracy to exhaust itself and pave the way for something else. On its own, this revelation would not shock anyone familiar with Athenian political life or with the life and death of democracy more broadly (Keane 2009). The Athenian experiment was short-lived. Not only that, it was separated by a period of two millennia before a second experiment with democracy emerged in the USA. We are now approaching 250 years since this second democratic experiment began. The occasion is a sobering one, writes Ringen (2014). The looming anniversary presents democrats everywhere with an opportunity to reflect on whether democracy is really ‘the default’. Australian Journal of Political Science, 2015 Vol. 50, No. 2, 365–379, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2015.1037824

Global days of action, global public transcripts and democracy: a reply

This is a reply to:Gregoratti, Catia. 2014. “Global days of action, global public transcripts and democracy.” Global Discourse. 4 (2–3): 353–366. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2014.914367.