

Future Publics
Democracy, Deliberation, and Future-Regarding Collective Action
Author: Michael K. MacKenzie
Narrator: Stephen Bel Davies
Unabridged: 9 hr 38 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 09/28/2021
Categories: Nonfiction, Political Science, Public Policy, Political Ideologies
Synopsis
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.