What if democracy could be done differently? What if it could be done better?
These are the questions we have been posing to students while helping them use their own student governments as an opportunity to experiment with and develop innovative ways of practicing democracy…
Check out this new episode of ‘Democracy Talk’ by Patrick Chalmers, in which our very own Adam Cronkright talks about the latest from Democracy In Practice, what we’re seeing, and the US presidential elections…
A recent award of funding from the newDemocracy Foundation (nDF) will enable Democracy In Practice to conduct innovative empirical research into the way that communities experience change to their systems of government. The research project will use Democracy In Practice’s student government-based projects as case studies to explore the shift from elected governments to those that are randomly selected and rotated…
Our work has been featured in a new article on Everyday Democracy’s website! The article explores their “What does democracy mean to you?” campaign and some of the responses it generated, as well as highlights some of the ways in which Democracy In Practice is working toward making those responses a reality. Check it out!
In July, a group of ten teachers and school administrators from the US visited us. They came to Cochabamba as part of the Dragons Professional Educator Course, and were being treated to a tour of ours and the Fundación Abril’s projects. So, by day’s end they got to see and learn about a neighborhood-owned and -operated water treatment plant, organic student gardens, rain catchment systems, the Andean School of Water, and the randomly selected and rotated student government in Valle Alto!
On Sunday we were invited as official observers of an election for the directorship of a community in the southern part of Cochabamba. María Auxiliadora is a very well-known and progressive community, founded fifteen years ago on the principals of collective land ownership and largely female leadership. Although the community had been unified for its first decade, over the past five or so years they have become very divided, and from we can gather most of the divisions are rooted in the issue of land ownership…
Last week, the student government in Quintanilla finished up it’s first term of 2015. This group of randomly selected student volunteers had to overcome some difficult challenges, but on the whole these past four months were a success for them as student leaders and for us as their advisors…
Adam was interviewed by Patrick Chalmers of Fraudcast News on June 4th to talk a bit about our work in Bolivia. Have a listen, and feel free to comment!
Our case study, Democracy In Practice: Democratic Student Government Program in Cochabamba, Bolivia, is up on Participedia! It gives an in-depth look into our experiences, outcomes, and lessons learned implementing randomly selected and rotated student governance in three schools in Bolivia last year – the first year of our work with students…
We need your help to continue working to develop and share better ways to do democracy!
Fantastic new short video promoting #sortition and @Davidvanrey's book, Against Elections - check it out! youtube.com/watch?v=…
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