This episode explores the role universities play in upholding and deepening democracy. How does university education foster civic engagement and a democratic spirit? How do universities foster interactive diversity? And what positive contributions can institutions of higher education make in order to strengthen democracy today? Listen to the illuminating discussion regarding the relationship between universities and democracy.
Guests featured in this episode:
Ronald Daniels, the President of Johns Hopkins University, as well as a board member of the Central European University. His numerous accomplishments include the Order of Canada awarded to him in 2016 and his election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During his tenure as President, Johns Hopkins University has consistently ranked at the top for its interdisciplinary research and innovation, enhanced student access, as well as community engagement. It thus serves as a true model for a research university in the 21st century.
Last year, Ron Daniels published an agenda-setting book, "What Universities Owe Democracy." It makes a compelling and a passionate case for universities to be engaged in preserving and strengthening democratic achievements that are under threat, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Glossary:
What is the Pell Grant program?
(11:34 or p.4 in the transcript)
The Pell Grant is a form of need-based federal financial aid awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to help eligible low-income students pay for college costs, including tuition, fees, room and board, and other educational expenses. The Pell Grant is the largest grant program offered by the Department of Education to undergraduate students. Created in 1972, the federal Pell Grant program has been awarding grants to students since the 1973-1974 school year. It was named after Sen. Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, the chief sponsor of the program. To be eligible, students must demonstrate exceptional financial need, be a U.S. citizen or eligible noncitizen and have not yet received a bachelor's, graduate or professional degree. While graduate students are not typically eligible for Pell Grant aid, in some cases students seeking a post-baccalaureate teacher certification may be eligible. The Pell Grant generally does not need to be repaid, but there are some exceptions, such as in case of withdrawing from courses or changing enrollment status after a Pell Grant award has been disbursed. Students may lose Pell Grant eligibility entirely if they withdraw from courses, do not maintain enrollment status or fail to continue making academic progress, which can include GPA requirements set by individual institutions. source
What is the K-12 education?
(14:43 or p.4 in the transcript)
The K-12 system stands for ‘from kindergarten to 12th grade’. This equates roughly to a school starting age of around five through to Grade 12 at around the age of 18. The system is broken down into three stages: elementary school (Grades K–5), middle school (Grades 6–8) and high school (Grades 9–12). In the United States, education is primarily the responsibility of state and local government. Every state has its own department of education and laws regarding finance, the hiring of school personnel, student attendance and curriculum. States also determine the number of years of compulsory education – in some states, education is only compulsory until the age of 16. In December 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which pledged to offer the same standard of education to every child in the US “regardless of race, income, background, the zip code, or where they live”. The act replaced the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and, among other things, is an attempt to bring back some element of control with the recommendation for having fewer tests. source
Shalini Randeria (SR): Welcome to "Democracy in Question," the podcast series that explores challenges democracies are facing around the world. I'm Shalini Randeria, Rector and President of the Central European University, Vienna, and Senior Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Center on Democracy at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. Welcome to the third episode of season six of "Democracy in Question."
It's a great pleasure to welcome Ronald Daniels, the President of Johns Hopkins University, as well as a board member of my own university, the Central European University. Among his numerous accomplishments, let me only mention the Order of Canada awarded to him in 2016 and his election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During his tenure as President, Johns Hopkins University has consistently ranked at the top for its interdisciplinary research and innovation, enhanced student access, as well as community engagement. It thus serves as a true model for a research university in the 21st century.
Last year, Ron Daniels published an agenda-setting book, "What Universities Owe Democracy." It makes a compelling and a passionate case for universities to be engaged in preserving and strengthening democratic achievements that are under threat, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. So, ours is, in fact, an overdue conversation about the interdependence of liberal democracy and universities. Universities, as he points out, depend on democratic values and practices for their functioning as autonomous institutions. In turn, they contribute to nurturing and furthering democracy as a way of life.
Today, universities everywhere have come under attack from anti-democratic forces. My institution, the CEU, not only epitomizes this relationship, but has paid a high price for it. The very fact that it was attacked by the Hungarian government and forced to relocate is testimony to the power of critical thought and argument and the relevance of autonomous universities upholding academic freedom, something which authoritarian leaders seem to fear all over the world.
Universities are thus indispensable for keeping the spirit of democracy alive as Ron Daniels points out in his book, and let me quote him here, when he says, "They can certainly be neither indifferent, nor passive in the face of democratic backsliding." What responsibilities then do universities bear in upholding and also deepening democracy? Have universities lived up to their promise to provide paths to mobility and thus reduce inequalities and entrenched privilege? Why do authoritarian regimes fear the autonomy of a university? Does the dependence of universities on state funding or market forces or philanthropy affect their autonomy in different ways? What kinds of positive contributions can universities make to strengthening democracy today? These are some of the questions that Ron Daniels and I will discuss in this episode. Ron, welcome to the podcast, and thanks very much for joining me today.
Ronald Daniels (RD): Shalini, it's a privilege to be here, and quite excited to have this conversation, and particularly given your role at the helm of an organization, an institution that I've long tracked and applauded from my perch in the United States. So, again, delighted to be here.
SR: In your latest book, "What Universities Owe Democracy," you've argued forcefully that this is not merely an issue of institutional survival for universities in the face of authoritarian threats, but also a matter of proactive intervention. That universities ought to abandon self-limiting ideals of hyper-professionalized scholasticism and embrace, instead, democratic values that they themselves, not only embody, but also depend on and shape. I agree entirely with your incisive diagnosis of the present and fully endorse this call for arms.
So, let me begin by asking you about the ways in which universities themselves have, perhaps, been complicit in the last years in the gradual undermining of democratic norms and values. Had there been greater awareness among us scholars of what universities owe democracy, could we have done more over the last decades to preempt this kind of democratic backsliding in the U.S., but also elsewhere?
RD: Shalini, I think it's a really important question, and it really frames the book that I wrote along with my co-authors, Grant Shreve and Phillip Spector. And at the core of it was an understanding, first and foremost, of the responsibilities that we believe universities have for the flourishing of liberal democracy.
There's a number of ways in which we enumerate the things that we require from them in order to survive. But I think there's been less clarity around the ways in which we, first and foremost, provide an indispensable role in supporting liberal democracy. And, in turn, are we doing all that we can to support liberal democracy? Particularly in a moment where we see across the world what many have described as a democratic recession, that we are seeing more and more countries move from robust or even fragile liberal democracy towards authoritarianism.
In order to answer the question of what could we have done, I think it first requires we talk a little bit about, well, how, in fact, does the university support liberal democracy? What are the ways in which we become critical to, nay indispensable, to its flourishing? There are four key concepts or themes that we identify in the book that demonstrate how universities support healthy, liberal democracy.
The first is that we're important engines for social mobility. And again, here the story is well-told. We know from the literature that there is a significant appreciation in the value of one's human capital, your earning power, if you go to college and complete a bachelor's degree than if you only stop at high school. We know a number of benefits related to your enhanced earning power accrue from that experience.
But it's also true that people who have received higher education also enjoy a number of other benefits that go to the stability of their families, their risk of unemployment, even their longevity. All of these outcomes are associated with higher education. We know this is a very powerful force in promoting social mobility. And then, of course, that calls a question, if we're so good at giving people the ability to transcend their circumstances, to change their life trajectory, how equally distributed is the opportunity for higher education?
And here, we see that across the developed world, that there's a clear association with people who come from families of high income, are much more likely to populate higher education than are people from the lower income strata, so that we have the potential for transformational movement to be a key engine for social mobility. But the question is whether we're doing all that we can to ensure that that potential is realized. And that's an area where we call the question, at least in the United States, for our underperformance. And again, the literature is quite clear here in terms of the preponderance of children from families of affluence who dominate higher education, and it is not something that is equally distributed. Our capacity to play that role in social mobility is consequently hindered.
SR: What one does see is a lot of criticism of late, especially in the United States against meritocracy defined in a very narrow sense, right? People doubt the effectiveness of university education in promoting social mobility. Some critics have lamented the relative decline of intellectual curiosity in favor of instrumental expectations about purely material gains and the need to acquire credentials. Others are critical of universities as institutions which actually reproduce these inequalities and cement privilege.
I'm thinking of the work of the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, and the political philosopher, Michael Sandel, as a recent critique of meritocracy, for example. Where do you see the main threats to universities to lie in as guarantors of greater mobility and distributive justice? And what are the kinds of remedies that you would propose here?
RD: The clear challenges for the realization of this ideal of social mobility and the university being a key instrument for playing that role in society, I think, you know, it was manifested in a number of different areas. One of the most glaring examples and something that is really idiosyncratic to the United States is the role of legacy admissions. These are preferences that are built into the fabric of elite higher education in the United States. They have been in existence for almost a century. And essentially what legacy preferences do is at the time of admission to university, it accords special weight or recognition to children who are related to previous graduates of the institution.
It is a hardwired benefit for students of privilege. And again, to the extent that one of the criticisms of meritocracy has been the extent to which, rather than being realized in its pure ideal form, what it has done is to create a class that has become quite entrenched and is able to perpetuate advantage, but in a way that defies ideas of equal opportunity and what many see as the requirements of a true or pure meritocracy.
So, I think that's one way in which we hobble our capacity to play this role in social transformation. Having said that, I come from Canada, I'm aware of the situation in Western Europe and liberal democracies there, and know that the benefits, again, that inure to high-income families and the overrepresentation of high-income families in universities is also extent in those jurisdictions, and they don't have legacies. I think there are other ways in which we undermine our capacity to achieve the full potential of the university in this regard. One way is just limitations on financial aid. Again, in the United States, there's been a woeful lack of investment in the expansion of needs-based financial aid programs supported by the federal government.
Though there's a debate right now about the role of debt relief, the question about the Pell program and its status and whether it has kept pace with inflation is something that's not being addressed. And again, that's an area where if we're really serious about this ideal, we should be putting funds behind it and ensure that no student is deprived of the opportunity to participate because of a lack of financial support. I should also add, I think there are other ways in which institutions can further the ideal by more effective and creative forms of outreach.
And again, we've seen from the work of a number of different commentators that there are students who are exceptionally talented from low and middle-income class backgrounds who are not coming to our institutions because we just haven't found effective ways to communicate with them, to make them aware of the availability of places in our institutions, and again, underscoring the transformative impact we can have on their futures.
I should just finally say that, in relation to legacies, this was a program that we had at Hopkins that when I came to the institution, this was part of the fabric of our institution, that we did have these preferences in place. But we decided after some discussion and self-reflection that this was something that was inconsistent with our mission, and we did jettison the program. And again, the impact that it has had in allowing us to recruit a much more socioeconomically, indeed, racially and ethnically diverse class is quite palpable.
SR: Let me turn to the second key function, Ron, which you mentioned in the book that university education should foster a strong sense of civic engagement and a broad democratic spirit. So, civic knowledge, skills, aspirations need to be carefully cultivated, as you note. And if I quote you on that, you say, "To not only preserve democracy, but also to renew and reinvigorate it. Indeed, the contemporary malaise of democracy in the United States," you argue, "has a lot to do with the steady erosion of this foundation in recent decades."
Could you explain some reasons why American universities have retreated from such an engagement and say something about the conundrum that you trace back in the book to the rise of the civil rights movements, culture wars, and the increasing political polarization of American society, which was evident in the recent election results as well?
RD: Shalini, you start with, I think a very important point, that democracy requires informed thoughtful citizens who are capable of engaging the political process, not just at elections, but in between elections, to basically play a monitoring role in ensuring the strength of the democratic institutions, the societies with which they're associated. And that capacity isn't something that is innate in humans. It's something that has to be cultivated. We have to educate our students to be able to take on that role.
In the United States, it's really quite striking that there has been a steady retreat in K-12 education from playing a role in educating students in the rudiments of government, in inculcating a sense of what the liberal democratic experiment is about, what values it's fostering, where it has achieved its aspirations, where it has lagged and so forth. It's quite striking that only about 25% of students graduating from American high schools will actually have a proper foundation in civics.
It calls the question, to the extent that you've got about 70% of Americans who graduate from high school then go on to post-secondary education, if this exposure, if this education is not happening at the level of K-12 education, then we represent, perhaps, the last chance to be able to provide those kinds of competencies before students graduate and find themselves, indeed, they even find themselves in the polling booth when they start at university, but graduate with the capacity to really be the kind of engaged and thoughtful and critical citizens that we require to support the demands of liberal democracy.
So it's here that I start off with the proposition that it's important that universities pick up the slack here and play a role in fostering these capabilities. I think there are a number of ways in which universities can do that. You could have requirements in terms of core curriculum that students would have to take before graduating. There are institutions that have specified that. You could do it around certain kinds of discreet moments in the lifecycle of the university. We do a lot of programming in our orientation. We have a Democracy Day at Hopkins in which we introduce students to some of these themes, and then we try to continue with other engagements during the course of the academic year.
Again, I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all approach here, but I think what it does require is that universities say, "We have a responsibility to do this." And, indeed, as you indicate through American history, there have been various moments in which there has been strong national recognition at the level of the federal government, but indeed in sectors beyond that, where it's understood that there's a responsibility on the part of the education system to cultivate these capacities and a recognition that the universities have to be part of the system to do that.
I think the truth is that these moments, though, very often, they are born in times of military conflict, after the second World War, in particular in the United States, there was lots of thought given to the responsibilities of cultivating democratic citizenship. But for whatever reason, these moments of intentionality aren't durable, and they don't persist. We find that there are spasms of attention, but over time, there's a retreat. If it's not happening in high schools and it's not happening in post-secondary education, the truth is it's not happening.
SR: Let me pick up one point which you make in the book, Ron, which I found really interesting, where you suggest that successful struggles for greater inclusion and recognition have come at the cost of breaking up social consensus and cohesion. So, that the re-institution of democracy requirements, which, as you very rightly point out, is lacking in several university curricula, can take place. Then you have to somehow maintain a fine balance between the ideals of liberty, equality, solidarity, on the one hand, and a self-reflexive recognition of difference, on the other hand, so that the recognition of differences could somehow water down, if we are not careful, the commitment to the traditional ideas of universalism embodied in the university literally as the realm of universals.
RD: The Democratic project, and particularly in a setting of more heterogeneous societies, ultimately has to grapple with these issues of how can we interpret the requirements of liberal democracy with its focus on equality and opportunity and liberty with the reality that we're not dealing with homogeneous communities anymore. There is significant difference, and we have to find ways to accommodate those differences in a way that is consistent with the imperatives of liberal democracy. So don't think there are easy or pat answers to the ways in which you do that.
But fundamentally, I think we have to give students the tools and the knowledge to be able to grapple effectively with what is the great challenge of our times. We have to bring students into the conversation and to give them the sense that through careful introspection, we can get to a better place, that this isn't a dismal enterprise. It's exciting, and there are answers and there are successful projects. And to give them the sense of optimism about being part of that, and to see that as a noble calling that should be part and parcel of what it means to become educated and to participate in a university.
SR: One of the most powerful arguments in the book was your advocacy of universities as the site of what you call purposive pluralism, that universities must provide a space for young people of diverse backgrounds to engage in a meaningful dialogue. And you mention an interesting worry in your book where you say that American universities of late have focused too much on structural diversity that is satisfying numerical quotas of inclusion while neglecting what you call interactional diversity that is proactively encouraging the intermingling of students from different backgrounds.
In a society like the United States, in particular, but I think this is true of almost every society today, where there is so much difference of ideological and political views also on campus, how could we get students to engage with unfamiliar, and sometimes, even uncomfortable positions and perspectives in the classroom and outside of it?
RD: I think, Shalini, that this requires, again, intentionality. And here as you note, the distinction that we provide between structural or compositional diversity and actual interactive diversity, I think is an important one because simply having communities that are, at one level, more heterogeneous, where you've got a greater diversity of perspectives of backgrounds, but if the groups aren't interacting, then we're just simply echoing or mirroring the phenomenon that we're seeing in the United States, more generally, where, again, like are not just living next to like, they're marrying like, they're working with like, they're socializing with like, so that we actually see these enclaves that have grown up and become quite formidable, that I think are very corrosive in a robust liberal democracy.
Again, here, to the extent that we have succeeded in creating significant diversity in the composition of our student bodies, you can't just simply rest on that. Then the hard work becomes how you actually force the conversations, both intentional and serendipitous, that will really start to interrogate, again, these core conundra of the moment as to how we think about responding to a number of different challenges that our society faces.
What we're trying to do in a number of different ways is to model the importance of debate and engagement across different perspectives. What we're doing, formal programs that the university will do, but in terms of the way in which we hope our various student groups will organize programs, is to try and back off of the sole speaker events where different groups bring their speaker of interest onto campus, typically speaking from a perspective that reinforces their worldview. Instead, say, how do we actually have more debates, more panels, more exchanges where diversity of perspectives across, particularly the political spectrum, are represented.
And we model for students the capacity to have conversations where we can disagree vehemently with one another, but hopefully, slowly, but surely figure out whether or not we're disagreeing on core values. If we are disagreeing on core values, what are those values that are in play in a given challenge that we're looking at? And to what extent actually does it turn out we actually agree on core values, but we have different views on the empirical state of the world, and that maybe with a little more information, we'll be able to narrow the wide space among us.
And more than that, we can have these conversations that really foster a sense of civic friendship that we can disagree, but we can still have a level of interaction with one another. That, again, is something that stands in opposition to the deep level of polarization and discord where we see now the cancel culture, and so forth, where people are basically demonized for taking views that are outliers and don't comport to what some segment of the population thinks is the received wisdom or the received set of norms.
I think this is a place that, again, there are perturbations that we can make here to increase the likelihood that will get the kind of interactive diversity that builds on that structural diversity that we've recruited to our campuses.
SR: Let me turn towards the end, Ron, to the fourth function, which you mention in the book, and namely, a core function of the university, the dissemination of fact-based verifiable knowledge. And here we have a conundrum, I think. Do you think we as social scientists, unwittingly played a part in undermining the positivist conception of science and scholarship so that when we argued for the social construction of knowledge of scientific paradigms and facts, that many of us obsessed about the complicity of scholarship with mechanisms of power and domination, that faced with fake news and conspiracy theories proliferating in social media, is it too late to re-establish respect for facts for science without necessarily going back to an older model of unquestioned authority?
RD: I think it starts with the recognition that there are virtually no institutions that I'm aware of that we have in contemporary-level democracy that are unquestioned. And what we see is not just greater skepticism, but disillusionment with a number of key institutions. And so here, to my mind, one of the key strengths, one of the key attributes of the research university is that we are curators of knowledge. We create knowledge and we curate knowledge.
And when one looks at our institutions of tenure, the centrality of academic freedom and the ability to speak truth to power, the ways in which we basically create an environment that hopefully conduces to a movement towards greater truth and pure knowledge, if we're doing that well, and we are truly a place apart, I think in this moment, particularly given the contestation of fact and truth, I think that at our best, we can be that place that mediates among these different claims to truth and validity and actually can play a role in helping liberal democracy thrive, to reject things that are nakedly false, and to be able to give people assurance that claims that are made are truthful, are accurate, whether they come from government, from industry, and so forth.
I think the perspective role is a powerful one. And it's a powerful way in which we support liberal democracy, however, as you know from the book, we have a number of disciplines in which it's hard to reproduce the results of our research. And there are concerns around our capacity to fulfill this function effectively, that I think we undermine our standing. It's here that we argue vociferously for taking seriously these questions of reproducibility of our science, whether it's in the natural sciences or in the social sciences, to be more aggressive, vigorous in our use of open science, of publishing more of the background work that undergirds the claims that we make, but fundamentally, to take seriously this sort of central and hallowed role for the university as a place that is truly dedicated to the pursuit of truth and knowledge.
And I think that to the extent that in many areas we are a natural focal point for society and preserving the roles, it's not that we have no standing, we have lots of standing, and we often play that role. It's just trying to double down on the vulnerabilities here so that we are as powerful as possible in protecting this ideal.
SR: Ron, one of the things you point out in the book is that the generation of 1968 turned away from and against universities because for them universities symbolized collusion with and also cooptation by oppressive structures of both state and market corporations. The picture in many less democratic or non-democratic countries is quite clear. Many institutions of higher education are little less than pseudo-universities, which are venues for dogmatic indoctrination. But even in established liberal democracies, academic freedom has become subjected to threat from many quarters.
So, could you say something about the threats that you perceive to be paramount at the moment in the United States, and how could we, through the critical self-reflexivity and the cultivation of vigilance that you have been arguing for, ensure that the very conditions for the possibility that allow university autonomy could be preserved?
RD: I think it starts, Shalini, with our working hard at having society understand that though we are autonomous, we are still deeply accountable to the society of which we are part. And so, indeed, I would argue, and it goes back to what I said a moment ago, our capacity to be the place where competing claims to truth are fairly, objectively, rigorously mediated, in some sense, that's only possible if we are not tied to any particular institution, that we are tied to a set of norms and processes around how we actually make those decisions.
And it seems to me that particularly, although we know the risks of social media and we know the way it cultivates motivated reasoning, we know how it reinforces certain types of behaviors and so forth. But having said that, I still think, fundamentally, people want to know what's true. People want to make decisions in their private life and in their public life that are basically predicated on an understanding of truth, of accuracy, of facts and circumstances. Just there's too much at stake to do anything but that.
And so I think given that basic, and I like to believe, quite deeply innate human yearning for truth, I think this is where our working to demonstrate, not just at an abstract level, but just even in concrete ways, in a number of different areas, how the university plays this important truth-seeking role and how we are able to condition society better for the challenges of the moment. And so if we're able to do that, I think that this is a good way in which we can continue to garner the support for the kinds of things like academic freedom, the kind of autonomy that is our lifeblood. There's a very direct experience that we have here that might be a helpful illustration, so we move this from the abstract to the more concrete.
There was quite a serendipitous set of circumstances that found Johns Hopkins as a focal point for tracking the spread of the COVID pandemic. Over the course of the pandemic, more than a billion people went onto that site. It was amazing how frequently that site was accessed as a place to ascertain, as best as one could, the true state of the spread of the pandemic. It demonstrated, for me, at least, this moment when it was a university that not only private individuals, but governments, industry, NGOs, were looking to, to help us work through this monumental challenge.
I think there are a number of ways, big and small, in which we are natural sites for identifying, confirming, and then, ultimately, disseminating truth. And I think to the extent that we play that vital role, my hope is that the society will continue to support us in the way it has, but, again, with the sense that there are reciprocal rights and obligations that we have if we're to maintain that support.
SR: Thank you so much, Ron, for this fascinating and really wide-ranging conversation about the interrelationship between democracies and the university, and the role of universities in preserving, strengthening democracy, but also, of course, the need of universities to have a democratic environment which allows them to be autonomous institutions. Thanks very much for being with me today.
RD: Thanks so much for the opportunity, Shalini. It was wonderful to be here.
SR: Let me summarize my conversation with President Daniels. Today, universities everywhere have come under attack from anti-democratic forces. The very fact that my own university, the Central European University, was attacked by the Hungarian government and even forced to relocate to Vienna, Austria, is testimony to the power of critical thought and the relevance of autonomy in upholding academic freedom – something which authoritarian leaders all over the world seem to fear. Ron Daniels has made a powerful argument in this context about why universities and democracy are mutually reinforcing. Universities depend on democratic values and practices for their functioning as autonomous institutions, in turn they contribute to nurturing and furthering democracy as a way of life. University autonomy is thus not merely a matter of institutional survival in the face of authoritarian threats, but also a matter of proactive intervention. Universities ought to therefore abandon self-limiting ideals of hyper-professionalized scholasticism and embrace instead the democratic values that they themselves not only embody but also depend on and also shape. It is important to remember that universities are important engines for social mobility and thus help create more equal life chances in every society. University education should also foster a strong sense of civic engagement and a broad democratic spirit so civic knowledge, skills, aspirations need to be carefully cultivated in and outside the classroom. However, successful struggles for greater inclusion and recognition have come at the cost of breaking up social cohesion and consensus. So there is a risk that needs to be weighed carefully and considered. We have to find ways to accommodate differences in a way that is consistent with the imperatives of liberal democracy. Universities are a crucial site of what Ron Daniels has called purposive pluralism. They must provide a space for young people of diverse backgrounds to engage in a meaningful dialogue and learn to respect diversity and to tolerate differences. And besides teaching the importance of debates and engagement across various perspectives, the core function of a university is the dissemination of fact-based verifiable knowledge. This is the best check that we can have against the spread of disinformation. Universities ideally create an environment that hopefully conduces to a movement towards greater truth and prior knowledge, something that serves the democracy well by providing the critical thinking that all open societies thrive on.
This was the third episode of season six of Democracy in Question. Thank you for listening and join us again for the next episode in two weeks’ time. My guest will be political scientist Ken Opalo with whom I will discuss the promises and pitfalls of electoral democracy across Africa. We will talk about the role of national elites, of colonial legacies and interventions by external powers and the urgent need for democratic governments to deliver on the social welfare. Please go back and listen to any episode you might have missed and of course let your friends know about the podcast if you’ve enjoyed it. You can stay in touch with the work of the Central European University at www.ceu.edu and the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy at www.graduateinstitute.ch\democracy.