Democracy is valued by many people because it enables us to achieve freedom and political equality in addition to numerous economic and social goals. But democracy also allows us to decide from time to time by whom we wish to be governed. Through elections, we can place in office those who we expect to like and also remove from office those we do not like.

Adam Przeworski argues that the essence of democracy is that it processes in relative liberty and peace whatever conflicts that arise in society. And elections are the main mechanism by which conflicts are managed. This is because elections generate temporary winners and losers designated by specific rules. Elections peacefully process conflicts when the losers do not find their defeat too painful and if they expect to have a reasonable chance of winning in the future. This also means that the winners do not inflict too much pain on the losers and do not foreclose the possibility of being removed from office.

Adam Przeworski is Emeritus Professor of Politics at New York University and one of the world’s foremost scholars on democracy. He has studied political regimes, democracy, autocracy, and their intermediate forms, the conditions under which regimes survive and change, as well as their consequences for economic development and income equality. His latest book is Crises of Democracy, where he discusses the political situation in established democracies, places this in the context of past misadventures of democratic regimes, and speculates on the future of democracy. Twitter: @AdamPrzeworski

Key highlights:

Introduction - 0:44

Definitions and understandings of democracy – 2:42

The distinction between democracy and freedom – 11:15

Democracy and minority rights – 17:54

Income and democracy – 30:08

Processing conflicts – 37:27

The future of democracy in Poland  – 45:36 

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPod

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Host

Professor Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)

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