SSRC: Anxieties of Democracy: Are the People the Problem?

Join us for the final program in the series “Anxieties of Democracy,” presented by the Social Science Research Council at Roosevelt House. The SSRC has convened a group of experts on this subject to explore how representative democracy can be strengthened at a time when there is great concern about whether the country’s core institutions — elections, political parties, legislatures, interest groups, social movements, and mass media — are capable of addressing the great questions of our time.

The evening will be devoted to the relationship of citizens to key institutions, degrees of public knowledge and patterns of political participation. This event will specifically examine the role of human behavior in the political process, and how it can be an agent — and also roadblock — to political and economic development.

The conversation will moderated by Roosevelt House Interim Director, Jonathan Fanton. The panel features two leading experts on American society: Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and Paul Starr, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and Stuart Professor of Communications and Public Affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.